Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Chane bolted along the building’s side, but before he reached the corner, the man ducked back out of sight. Chane rounded into the alcove, and the tines of a pitchfork drove for his face. He twisted to the side, though an outside tine slid along his temple.

A slight sting rose as the skin beneath his hair split. He grabbed the fork’s base with his left hand, and another tine’s tip scraped along his wrist. When he struck out, his right fist caught the stable keeper on the cheekbone. The heavy man toppled backward through the open rear door as Chane jerked the pitchfork away.

And the beast inside of him struggled to awaken.

Chane stood staring as the man stirred limply just inside the doorway. All he wanted was another kill, another true moment as it should be. Perhaps it would be his last chance. No one would know, even Wynn, except ...

Even the beast seemed only dully piqued, as if groggy from dormancy. In its strange complacency, reason plagued Chane.

Once he returned to the caravan station, they would not leave straight off. A stolen wagon was one thing; a dead man was something else. It might bring a more thorough search for a perpetrator.

The beast inside of him suddenly became more aware, and wailed in frustration.

Chane bit down, but there was nothing between his teeth. He could haul the body away in the wagon, dump it along the shore where it would take longer to discover, and return safely to Wynn.

He still hesitated, for Wynn had forbidden him to kill any sentient being.

No ... she had forbidden him to kill in order to feed.

Chane had struggled and fought with himself to follow her wishes. Even if he left the stable keeper alive but unconscious, the moment the man woke, he would raise the alarm.

The beast within him wobbled as it rose. Shaking off some lethargy, it lunged to the limits of its chains.

Chane reached down and grabbed the man’s head in both hands. With one quick wrench, he broke the stable master’s neck. The man’s body tensed once all over and went slack upon the stable’s straw.

The beast shrieked. Chane winced, as if hearing—feeling—its rage at being denied.

He hauled himself up the doorframe and dragged the body out to toss it in the wagon’s back. He jerked a tarp across, took one last look around the stable, and grabbed a sack of oats, a bucket, and a pile of blankets.

Every motion was mechanical, but inside, Chane ached from what he had not done more than for what he had done. One brief chance at release, for his own need, and he had not taken it.

Finally, he picked up a heavy shovel leaning against one wall and slammed the sharp end against the chain holding the front wheel. It broke easily, but so did the shovel. He tossed the shovel in the wagon and climbed aboard, grabbing and flicking the reins.

Driving the wagon south out of town, he went even farther than where he judged the caravan station lay. He dumped the body over the rock lip above the shore, not bothering to watch it splash into the water, and tossed the broken shovel after it. When he turned inland over the rough ground, finding the road back toward the city, it was not long before he spotted the campfires in the night.

Chane had acquired what they needed. At least in part, he had done so as Wynn required.

Wynn was quite satisfied as she led the way back carrying three heavy skins of fresh water. Ore-Locks hauled a burlap sack nearly filled with potatoes, carrots, and some strange type of apple she’d never seen before. And, of course, there was more smoked fish.

They’d also found speckled eggs, a clay jar of olives in their own oil, and a little goat cheese sealed in wax. If Chane was successful, they could also scavenge seaside driftwood to bring, should they have trouble with dry firewood along the way.

When they reached the caravan camp, fewer people were up and about. Some had settled into bedrolls around the embers of dying fires. Wynn saw no sign of Chane anywhere.

What would they do if he couldn’t acquire transportation that could be covered during the day?

“Here he comes,” Ore-Locks said. “But why is he ... ?”

Ore-Locks didn’t finish as Wynn followed his gaze.

Chane drove a wagon along the dirt road. He wasn’t coming from the city, but rather from the south. He pulled up, tied off the reins, and dropped to the ground. Two fine young horses in new harnesses were hooked to the large wagon with high sides and a thick rear gate. This was more than what Wynn expected, and her pleasant surprise turned to discomfort.

“How much did you have to pay?” she asked quietly.

“Nothing in coin,” he answered. “I traded for it.”

“Traded?” she echoed. “Traded what?”

Her discomfort grew when he didn’t answer straight off.

“Some of Welstiel’s rods,” he said. “The metal alone is worth a good deal.”

Wynn had never liked that Chane kept all of Welstiel’s arcane possessions. Trading away any of them was fine with her, especially if someone was going to melt them down for their metal.

She smiled, patting the neck of a pretty bay mare. “Well done. You’re getting as good at barter as Ore-Locks.”

Then she noticed a dark line running out of his sleeve and down to the palm of his hand.

“Are you hurt?”

“It is nothing,” he said, turning away. “We should get the wagon ready.”

Just before dawn, Chane lay curled in the wagon’s covered bed, listening to the bustle of team masters preparing the caravan to leave. Ore-Locks, Wynn, and even Shade were up on the front bench, ready to head out.

No one had come looking for the wagon or horses.

Chane still wore his heavy cloak and had put on the gloves and scarf, as well. The mask and glasses lay next to his head, along with both of his swords. Should the caravan be attacked during daylight, he would know it, hear it, and be ready.

He pulled the narrow, leather-bound box from Welstiel’s pack and opened it, taking out a glass vial containing the violet concoction.

“We’re off,” Wynn said, though not to him.

Ore-Locks grunted acknowledgment as the wagon lurched forward.

Chane downed part of the vial’s contents and then returned it to the padded box. He could already sense the burning rays of the sun just beyond the canvas above him.

It would be a long day.

The monotonous creak of wagon wheels mixed with clopping hoofs still echoed in Wynn’s head when they set up camp each night. One day blurred into the next until the caravan stopped for two days to repair a wagon wheel, and she realized that more than half a moon had passed.

The line of wagons traversed an expansive valley between high ridges, rocking along on a northeasterly inland path. Grass-covered stone hills flowed down into intermittent woods of wild green brush, and the trees marked the landscape difference most of all. There were fewer firs and pines, as in the Numan lands, and far more massive, leafy, deciduous growths. The hardened dirt road was so old that it often exposed packed stones uncovered by years of use and rainfall.

Like the seasons’ rhythms, Wynn’s daily life changed from her time aboard the ships. She drove the wagon all day while Chane and Ore-Locks slept in the back, under cover, and on opposite sides of the wagon. Then they woke to stand guard all night.

Shade napped only during the day, perched upon the wagon’s bench with Wynn, but she never seemed to fully sleep. Often, she would suddenly lift her head, going rigid all over as she stared into the wild. It happened most when they passed through densely wooded regions. Her vigilance began making Wynn more nervous in having left civilization. And too often, Wynn began peering into the trees as well, waiting to hear a voice or voices of the Fay rise in her thoughts.