Part 20 (1/2)

”Let's try to take this one alive,” said Hogan. He picked up a lamp. ”I'll go first.”

They approached the pitch black chamber that led to the stair and found nothing.

In the chambers below, something crashed, then fell silent.

Hogan began his descent, Argoth close on his heels. Argoth wanted to run, but knew that doing so would extinguish his lamp. Nevertheless, they took the second set of stairs three and four at a time, their flames guttering the whole way. At the bottom, Hogan's lamp finally did blow out, but they hurried on. As they approached the door to the open chamber, Argoth expected to see a light, carried by whomever had broken in, but the cleansing room was dark as ink.

Purity spoke to someone inside. ”What do you want?” she asked in terror.

Hogan turned and relit his lamp with Argoth's flame, and then stepped through the doorway. He held his lamp aloft. The light showed the door to Purity's cell lying on the stone floor. It had been wrenched completely out of its fittings. Inside the cell itself someone large hunkered over Purity while she struggled in his grasp.

The man seemed not to have heard their approach. Hogan changed his grip on the Hog and set down his lamp. But they needed more light. Argoth spotted a small pile of straw used for the cells lying in a heap to one side. He kicked a portion of it away, poured oil over it, then hurled his lamp down into the middle of it, cracking the lamp and spilling the oil.

The fire flared, illuminating the room and the back of the rough figure.

Hogan approached the cell, poised to swing the Hog. ”Put her down,” he commanded.

The man supported Purity with one arm and with the other fingered the King's Collar around her neck. Her blanket had fallen to the floor to expose her injured and bandaged body. Purity pushed away from the man, but was too weak to free herself.

The huge man wore an odd cloak of gra.s.s, but then he turned, and Argoth saw it was not a man. It was nothing like anything Argoth had ever seen. The gra.s.s he'd thought was a cloak was part of the creature, some patches whole, some burned. It opened its too-wide mouth and took in a ragged breath.

”Purity,” demanded Hogan. ”You said there was no dark grove.”

A terrible fear lit her eyes. ”Run,” she said. ”It's full of souls.”

Hunger tried to devour Purity like he had all the others, but the thing at her neck fought him. It stunk of the men's magic. There was the Mother's magic, but hers was always fresh and clean. This, this was something else.

He felt along its weave to untangle it and failed, and then the word for what it was surfaced in the murky waters of his mind like a giant fish. It was a King's Collar, something forged in the secret fires of the Kains that could prevent even a Divine from using magic. He marveled for a moment-how did he, Barg, a common butcher, know such things? He couldn't, shouldn't know such things, which meant that Barg wasn't the only man he'd eaten.

He looked more closely at the collar. If such a thing could harness a Divine, it might be able to harness a Mother.

That thought made him hold very still. The Mother was sleeping and had shut him out. She didn't know about this harness. Didn't know about this bit of lore that might bind her.

Hope sprang in him, but he beat his thoughts back, took them deep inside so they wouldn't wake her.

The Mother was going to eat his family. He knew that. No matter what he did, she would eat them. Perhaps in the end, she would eat him as well. But this collar, this might bind her up tight. After all, humans had beaten the Mothers before. She said so herself.

Humans with magic.

Hunger looked at the King's Collar. He looked at the sleth woman. The Mother wanted him to bind them all and bring them to her. Why? To use them? Or because they posed a threat?

Because they posed a threat, he decided.

Hunger held very still again and listened, but the Mother was not in him. The Mother was strong. But perhaps this time, if he was quiet and planned carefully, the prey, with this slip of magic, might turn the tables and catch the predator.

Someone called out from behind him. He turned and saw two men-a Mokaddian with a sword and a Koramite with an axe. Stink rolled off both of them in waves.

Hunger recognized the Mokaddian but couldn't put a name to him.

Then the Koramite charged and struck him with his axe.

The force of the blow knocked Hunger back a step. Such power surprised him. But it didn't matter. Hunger was a man of dirt. What could an axe do to dirt? He caught the Koramite by the throat and held him up. He could snap him like he had the other men above.

But there would be secrets in these two slethy men as well. Plenty of secrets. Some of which might show him how to defeat the Mother. He should eat them and discover their secrets. They weren't human. They were sleth. In fact, by all laws he should kill them. Eating them would not make him any more abominable than he already was. And it just might prevent the Mother from working her evil further.

Hunger tried to shuck the man, but he could not find a crack. It was like trying to use a spoon to peel the bark from a maple: all he could do was chip off small chunks.

He searched over the man's body and finally snagged on the tiniest of gaps. He could feel the man's soul inside. Could taste his fear.

Hunger tried to dig deeper, but the man resisted him. Hunger changed his attack and was resisted again. But this man wasn't like the trees in his glade. Hunger knew he could crack him; he could feel it. He changed his attack again, and this time was able to pry the seam open to expose the man's soul.

The Koramite struggled ferociously, but Hunger was stronger.

Something flashed, and Hunger suddenly lost his grip and dropped the Koramite to the floor.

Hunger turned. The Mokaddian had joined the fray. The flash had been his blade, cutting clean through the wrist of the arm Hunger had been holding the Koramite with. The Mokaddian swung his blade again at Hunger's neck, but the Mother had built him solidly there, and the blade simply lodged in the rock she'd used for his bones.

Hunger drew back the stump of his arm and swatted the Mokaddian to the other side of the room. He looked down at his hand on the floor and then at his stump. The dirt in his forearm began to s.h.i.+ft and form itself into a new ragged thing that looked not so much like a hand as it did the wild growth from a coppiced tree.

These two knew how to resist him. This meant he was going to have to kill them before he unraveled them. That was trickier than just taking them live. Trickier, but he could do it.

The Koramite backed up by the burning pile of straw. He held his useless axe ready. The Mokaddian knelt at the far wall, looking like he was trying to regain his senses.

Hunger would take the Koramite first.

Then he felt the Mother stirring, and all his attention turned back to the collar. He had to hide it quick, had to busy himself with some other task. Otherwise, she would know.

She would know. She would know!

She would command him to bring these men to her, and he would have to obey. Eventually, he would have to obey. But if she didn't know, she couldn't command.

Hunger turned and rushed back to Purity. He threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain and ran for the exit. The Koramite tried to stop him, but Hunger flung the man aside. Then it was up the stairs and into the dark, back the way he'd come. He'd get out, and then he'd remove the collar before the Mother fully wakened. He'd cover it and all thought of the men. And when she fell asleep again, Hunger would come back for them and their secrets and use them to wield the collar.

Argoth watched Hogan bury the Hog deep in the creature's leg, but it had no visible effect. The creature simply tossed Hogan to the side like he was so much straw. Then the creature rushed out of the cleansing room with Purity clutched to its chest and the Hog still buried in its leg.

Hogan struggled to his knees and winced, holding his arm close as if it were broken. ”That thing just might have cracked my collar bone.”

”I've never-” said Argoth in amazement. The power of that creature. What was it?

”I felt someone there,” said Hogan. ”Inside the beast.”

”Who?”

Hogan shook his head. ”I don't know.”