“Knives too,” said Talen.
Both Shoka unlooped the knives at their waists and cast them aside.
“On your bellies over there,” Talen said and pointed to a flat spot of ground.
Legs decided that was the time to step out of the brook bed. When he got to the top of the short bank, he walked, both hands in front of him, one high, one low.
“He’s the blind one,” the bowman said.
“Indeed, he is,” said Talen. “Now move.”
They didn’t have much time. The third Shoka could be returning this very moment to the road. He might have his dogs with him. Nevertheless, he waited for the two Shoka to move. By the time they were on their bellies, he stood by the Shoka’s bow.
“Legs,” he called. “Unstring this bow at my feet. We’re going to tie them up.”
Fifteen minutes later Talen and Legs were making their way toward moving water. There was at least one river and two creeks between them and the Widow’s and they’d have to use all three now that dogs might be involved.
The Shoka’s bow string hadn’t been long enough to bind both Shoka to different trees. So Legs had cut two strips off his tunic to use as rope and two more to use as gags.
“Do you think they will stay put?” asked Legs.
“Oh, I think your little eye show gave them quite a scare.” That and the fact that he’d married his freaky eye-rolling with odd gaggings and contortions. It was quite an effective method to cow the two so they didn’t try anything stupid while Legs tied them up. It had almost put Talen himself on the run.
And when the one Shoka had asked what was happening, Talen had played it up. And why not? How could the story get any worse? His family had already been caught harboring the hatchlings. They’d already been connected to the monster. And, despite the usefulness of claiming the hatchlings had enchanted them to do their bidding, there was no one else in the family who might be tempted to say such a thing. Truth be told, even he wasn’t going to give into that. Besides, they needed time. An hour’s head start might not even be enough if the dogs came.
“You know full well what he’s doing,” Talen had said.
The Shoka had taken it, as intended, for Slethery. And then the bright idea had come to Talen to say he believed Legs was calling the monster to watch them, to make sure they didn’t run.
Oh, yes. Talen was in this up to his neck.
Now the question was not if he was going to die. It was only, when? And would it include a lot of torture?
He thought of Da in Whitecliff. Surely, Uncle Argoth would protect him. Surely, Uncle Argoth would be able to convince Lord Shim. Because Talen certainly wasn’t helping him any.
Talen stopped before a clump of poison ivy. “We need to move faster.” Much faster. They needed to get to the first creek and wash their trail away. Then they needed to get to the river. Maybe float a bit.
“I can’t,” said Legs.
No, he couldn’t. His bare feet were already bloody in three places.
“Too bad you really can’t call that monster,” Talen said and unstrung his bow. He put the string in an oiled leather pouch that hung from his quiver and told Legs to hold the bow staff. “Raise your arm, brother Sleth. You’re going across my shoulders.”
Legs raised one arm.
Talen took it by the wrist, bent low, grabbed Leg’s ankle with his other hand, and stood up straight.
“Right,” he said. It was like lugging a sack of beets. That’s all this was. He adjusted Legs to more evenly distribute his weight. Then he plodded forward, around the clump of ivy, over a flat of rock, and then on to a game trail no wider than his foot.
38
Argoth ate at the Shark’s Tooth like a starved man. Eggs, sausage, thick cream on cherry biscuits. He stopped a serving maid as she walked by. “A bit of salted lard,” he said.
She bowed and hurried away. Lard, suet, butter, or cream-it didn’t matter. What Argoth needed was great quantities of bread and fat, for that was what softened the hunger that would come when he multiplied himself.
The sun had not yet risen, but the Skir Master wanted an early start. “Is the Captain easy at sea?” asked Uram.
“I regularly run the dreadman’s course, including the two-mile swim,” said Argoth. “And these are not tropical waters.” He bit into a juicy link of sausage.
“An admirable habit,” said Uram.
“Indeed,” said Argoth. “One can do worse than modeling the diet and activity of dreadmen like yourself.”
“But what about the captain’s stomach? Fatty foods on a rolling ship has laid low the strongest of men.”
A man spoke from behind in a dry voice. “There’s no need to worry, Zu. Lord Iron Guts will not lose his breakfast.”
Shim stood holding a mug of ale, a wide grin cracking his leather face.
Argoth considered Shim for a moment, but he saw no sign that the man had come to betray him.
“Some lords prove their stamina by drinking the hardiest of men under the table. Not Lord Porkslop, he buries them with a mountain of food.”
“Blighter,” said Argoth with a mouthful of eggs. “I didn’t see you arrive.”
“Of course, not,” said Shim. “Not with a plate of sizzling hog-tail sausages calling you like a lover.”
Argoth grunted, then patted the stool next to him.
Shim sat with his mug. “Captain,” he said to Uram. “Have you ever seen the like?”
“He does have a prodigious appetite.”
“Prodigious? I dare say Argoth’s stomach is by itself a force of nature. It is wise to keep all fingers outside the range of his fork.”
Argoth reached over and grabbed Shim’s mug. “If you don’t mind?”
“I do.”
But Argoth slipped it away, quaffed three gulps, then set it back down in front of Shim. “Nothing like a bit of ale with your eggs, eh?”
Shim looked into his mug. “Or a bit of eggs in the ale.”
It was like it had been; this was the man he loved, and Argoth laughed. In front of Uram, they discussed the defenses of the land, who would take Argoth’s place. But when they stepped out of the Shark’s Tooth onto High Street and began to walk down the cobblestone street to the wharves, Shim turned serious.
“I received a love letter,” he said.
“Oh?” asked Argoth.
“Yes, they always want some proclamation, some proof. I daresay I don’t know whether to write a stinging rebuke or show the sender some of my family history.”
Shim reached into his coat. He retrieved an object, and then grasped Argoth’s hand and placed it in it. “My great-great-grandfather made that.”
Argoth glanced down at it and closed his hand again. It was a weave, an ancient dead thing that looked like it should hang from a necklace, but a weave nevertheless.
Shim put his arm around Argoth like a friend. “Have I proven my love?”
Shim was not a dreadman. That meant this weave was his or one loaned from another. In either case, it meant he had placed himself in grave danger because possessing such a thing was a crime punishable by death. Unless, of course, he was part of this Skir Master’s plot.
Argoth looked into his friend’s face, but found no deception. It was a risk to trust him. He hadn’t been proven properly. But then this wasn’t a proper situation either. Besides, Shim had revealed his character through years of friendship.
Argoth sucked his teeth to get the last morsels out; a cart with a load of fish passed them going up the hill. Argoth turned to see the dreadman following them and passed the weave back.
“You don’t need it?”
“No,” said Argoth. “But you will. What else did Grandfather pass down?”