Part 7 (1/2)

Sabin stood above him lifting what must have been a forty pound field stone the color of fresh liver.

He raised it high, preparing to smash Talen's head like a gourd.

8.

Bounty TALEN ROLLED AWAY, trying to escape Sabin's stone.

”Hold!” someone shouted.

A horse snorted.

Talen tried to dart through the legs of the men surrounding him and was flung back to the ground. He froze, cringed, waiting for the crus.h.i.+ng stone. But it did not fall.

”Twenty stripes, Sabin,” a man said. ”I swear it!”

Talen glanced up. The men were not looking at him. They were looking at the Bailiff of Stag Home who sat upon his dappled gray horse, glaring at Sabin. It was he who had been the rider bearing down on him from the other direction.

Sabin hesitated, and then, almost in defiance, he dropped the stone perilously close to Talen's head.

”That,” said the Bailiff, pointing at Sabin, ”has just made you my riding horse.”

The Bailiff was not a large man. But he was strong and fearless in battle. His face was shaven close which revealed three scars where a bear had tried to take off his jaw. But it was his eyes, as pale as the horse upon which he rode, that fixed Talen's gaze. Those eyes had scared Talen as a boy. He had thought the man was full of evil. Father had convinced Talen otherwise, but, faced with those eyes, Talen could never maintain his certainty. The Bailiff directed that hard gaze at the other men.

”What is this here? Why are the fields empty?”

”There are Koramite sleth about,” someone said.

Sleth? Soul-eaters? Had Talen heard that right?

”This one ran like a monster,” one of the men said.

”Yes,” said the Bailiff. ”But it appears you caught him anyway.”

Talen looked up at the Bailiff, but a wave of pain and nausea slammed into him, and he was forced to turn and vomit into the gra.s.s. He hurt everywhere.

”Get up,” said the Bailiff.

Talen gagged once more, spit, and took three breaths to steady himself. Then he got to one knee, feeling all dizzy and trembling. Something was running out of his nose. He wiped his face with his sleeve expecting blood, but it was nothing more than snot. There was a ringing in his ears, and he didn't know if he could stand.

But he did know one thing: he would not show weakness. Not in front of these men. Goh, these arrogant Mokaddian garlic eaters. This would go to the Koramite council. And the council would take it to the Shoka lords. He was within his Whitecliff rights-everyone of these men should pay! And that thought was enough to take the edge off the flood of tears pus.h.i.+ng up within.

Talen stood. He almost toppled over, but then his dizziness seemed to recede.

Two other hors.e.m.e.n rode up from the village and joined the Bailiff. One was the bald Fir-Noy he had seen at the gate. His black beard and eyebrows were even bus.h.i.+er than they had first appeared. His Mokaddian wrist tattoo with its boar's tusk had been extended up his forearm showing not only his clan, but also the military order to which he belonged. The other Fir-Noy was a small man, a messenger. He rode a horse that was lathered and blowing from a long gallop.

The bearded Fir-Noy s.h.i.+fted on his saddle and the leather creaked under him. ”We tried to find you, Zu,” he said to the Bailiff. ”There's been a sleth hunt, and it appears that things have taken a turn for the worse.”

The Bailiff turned. ”A sleth hunt?”

The messenger eyed Talen then addressed the Bailiff. ”We identified the parents of the abomination pulled from the river. Yesterday, our forces closed in on Sparrow, the Koramite master smith of the village of Plum. But things did not go as well as planned. His two hatchlings escaped. And then some sleth sp.a.w.n came back and slaughtered a family in the village.”

Except for the buzzing in Talen's head there was dead silence. Sleth, he thought. What are these men doing wasting their time chasing me? They should be out- Then his brain processed that last statement. There were sleth among the Koramites, among Talen's people.

”We have reports,” the messenger continued, ”that they were spotted in this district. A Koramite girl and her blind brother.” He turned to the men. ”There's a sizeable bounty for any who bring them in, dead or alive. A miller's annual wage.”

The reports of sleth that sailors brought this spring had be noised about the whole district, driving people to put double bars on their doors. A sleth wife taken in Mokad had filed her teeth into sharp fangs. Her captors all thought it was to make her more fearsome in battle, but the hunters discovered the true reason when they broke open her smoke house and found the bodies of four men hanging butchered and half cured.

And that was just this year. There were stories of sleth stealing your soul away, then walking about in your body. Sleth growing horns, growing gills so they could swim in close and drag unsuspecting fishermen into the watery depths. Sleth were forever stealing sisters, wives, and husbands to use in unnumbered abominations.

If these men thought he was a.s.sociated with sleth . . .

Or was this simply another Fir-Noy scheme?

He realized it didn't matter at this point. If these men thought he a.s.sociated with such evil, then his life floated like a piece of duff over a bonfire.

The Bailiff turned to Talen. ”What are you doing here?”

”Trading chickens, Zu,” said Talen. ”That was my crime.”

”Then why did you run?” asked the Fir-Noy.

What a stupid question. ”It's hard to tell,” said Talen, ”I'm usually quite solid when facing a charge of Mokaddian villagers.”

Of course, stupidity was bred into the Fir-Noy. Their Clan was forever trying to stir all the others up to push the Koramites into the sea. It was probably that man who started this whole thing.

Sabin clopped Talen on the head and sent him reeling to his knees. ”Respect your betters.”

Talen steadied himself and stood again. The right side of his rib cage pained him. He took in a large breath, expecting to feel the sharp stab of a broken bone. There was a twinge, but it didn't feel like it came from a break. However, his one battered eye was swelling shut.

He looked at the Bailiff. ”I'm sorry, Zu. Let me restate.”

”No,” said the Bailiff. ”There's no need to restate.” His face was full of a pent-up anger. ”There soon won't be any chickens, Talen. There will be nothing for you Koramites. Your clans squander opportunity after opportunity. You can't keep yourselves clean, can you?”

”Zu,” said Talen. ”All I did was come for layers. And these men, without provocation, set upon me.”

”You ought to press him,” the Fir-Noy suggested. ”Who knows how wide their network is? And think about it. I'm told this skinny thing is a half-breed. But he's not just any old mongrel. This one's connected to high places, given special treatment. I'm told Argoth is going to adopt him into his family and give him a chance to earn the wrist of a Shoka man.” He spat at Talen's feet. ”This one can walk about and spy without being given a second glance.”

It was true Uncle Argoth and Da had recently talked about marrying Talen to a Mokaddian. It wasn't necessary for him to be adopted into a Mokaddian family to do so, but it would smooth the process. However, there were some who thought it a scandal. Even among the Shoka of Stag Home there were still a few who still wondered how Talen's mother, a Mokaddian of some station, could willingly debase herself and foul her offspring by marrying and mating Da, a full Koramite. There were those who saw her untimely death as a confirmation of that poor choice. Nevertheless, Uncle Argoth was determined to make him a full member of the clan, wrist tattoo and all.

”Are you spying?” asked the Bailiff.

”Zu,” said Talen. ”I mean no disrespect, but what would the purpose of such spying be? I have no idea what this is about.”

”Don't feign ignorance,” the Fir-Noy growled.

”I am what you see,” Talen said to the Bailiff. ”Nothing more.”