“It’s not worth,” he said through chattering teeth, “the effort it would take to chew.”
Hyrryai glanced at him, her face a shocky blank, eyes and nose and mouth streaming. She looked away again, then spat out a mouthful of excess saliva. The next second, she had keeled over and was vomiting over the side of the cliff. Shursta hurried to her side, tearing a strip from his sleeve as he did so, to gather her hair from her face and tie it back. His pockets were full of useless things. A coil of fishing line, a smooth white pebble, a pencil stub—ah! Bless Sharrar and her clever hands. A handkerchief. He pulled it out and wiped Hyrryai’s face, taking care at the corners of her mouth.
Her lips were bloodied, as though she had already eaten Myrar Yaspir’s heart. He realized this was because she had been careless of her teeth, newly filed into the needle points of the windwyddiam. Even a nervous gnawing of the lip might pierce the tender flesh there.
Blotting cautiously, he asked, “Did that hurt?”
The face Hyrryai lifted to Shursta was no longer hard and blank but so wide open that he feared for her, that whatever spirits of the night were prowling might seek to use her as a door. He moved his body more firmly between hers and Myrar Yaspir’s. He wondered if this look of woeful wonder would ever be wiped from her eyes.
“Nothing hurts,” she mumbled, turning away again. “I feel nothing.”
“Then why are you crying?”
She shrugged, picking at the grass near her feet. Her agitated fingers brushed again a dark and jagged stone. It was as if she had accidently touched a rotten corpse. She jerked against Shursta, who flailed out his foot out to kick the stone over the cliff’s edge. He wished he could kick Myrar Yaspir over and gone as well.
“Hyrryai—”
“D-Dumwei f-found you?” she asked at the same time.
“As you see.”
“I c-called you to w-witness.”
“Yes.”
“I was going to make you, make you w-watch while I—” Hyrryai shook her head, baring her teeth as if to still the chattering. More slowly, she said, “It was going to be your punishment. Instead I came upon him as he was, as he was k-killing you.”
And though his soul was sick, Shursta laughed. “Two at one blow, eh, Hyrryai?”
“Never,” she growled at him, and took his face between her hands. “Never, never, never, Shursta Sarth, do you hear me? No one touches you. I will murder anyone who tries. I will eat their eyes, I will…”
He turned his face to kiss her blood-slicked hands. First one, then the other.
“Shh,” he said. “Shh, Hyrryai. You saved my life. You saved me. It’s over. It’s over.”
She slumped suddenly, pressing her face against his neck. Wrenched back, gasping. A small cut on her face bled a single thread of red. When next she spoke, her voice was wry.
“Your neck grew fangs, Shursta Sarth.”
“Yes. Well. So.”
Hyrryai fingered the strand of tooth and stone and pearl at his throat. Shursta held his breath as her black eyes flickered up to meet his, holding them for a luminous moment.
“Thief,” she breathed. “That’s mine.”
“Sorry.” Shursta ducked his head, unclasped the necklace, and wound it down into her palm. Her fist snapped shut over it. “Destroy it again for all of me, Hyrryai.”
Hyrryai leaned in to lay her forehead against his. Even with his eyes shut, Shursta felt her smile move against his mouth, very deliberately, very carefully.
“Never,” she repeated. “I’d sooner destroy Droon.”
They left Myrar Yaspir’s body where it lay, for the plovers and the pipers and the gulls. From the sea cave they gathered what of Hyrryai’s belongings she wanted with her when she sailed with The Grimgramal into the unknown sky, and they knelt and kissed the place where Kuista Blodestone had fallen. These last things done, in silent exhaustion Shursta and Hyrryai climbed back up to the sea road.
Setting their faces for Sif, they turned their backs on Droon.
How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One
For Francesca Forrest
There’s that old saying:
“Truth is costly, dearly bought
Want it free? Ask a sot.”
Don’t you believe it. There’s no wisdom in wine, just as there’s no brevity in beer. And while I don’t accuse Da of malice aforethought, I wouldn’t have minded some—any!—aforethought in this case, being as times are harrowed enough without you add magic in our midst.
In a fit of drunkenness, Da had slobbered out the sort of rumor our own local pubbies wouldn’t half heed, chin-drowned in gin as they were. But the Archabbot’s Pricksters from Winterbane, having hungry ears for this sort of thing, ate the rumor right up and followed him home. To me.
“And just who are these nice folks, Da?” I asked as he stumbled through my new-swept kitchen. The Pricksters who had trooped in after stood in a half circle. They blocked the door, thumbs in their belts, staring.
“My friends, Gordie!” he belched. “Best friends a man could have.”
If these were friends, I’d sooner have climbed out the back window than face his enemies. Poor drunk bastard. By this time of night, the whole world was his friend.
I curtsied with scant grace, and they smiled with scant lips, and Da fell to his cot. His beatific snores started midway between air and pillow. I looked again at the Pricksters. No question they were strangers to Feisty Wold, but anyone awake to the world would recognize them. They each wore a row of needles on their bandoliers, a set of shackles on their belts right hip and left, and there were silver bells and scarlet flowers broidered on their boots to protect them from Gentry mischief.
“Miss,” they said.
“Misters and Mistresses,” said I. “Care for a drink? We have milk straight from the udder, or the finest well water in Feisty Wold.”
I did not let Da keep spirits under Mam’s roof—not if he wanted his clothes mended and his meals regular. Truth be told, he’d do near anything in her name. It was not her dying that had driven him to drink. It’d been her living that had kept him from it.
The head Prickster waved away my offer with a gauntleted hand. Her hair was scraped back under the bright red hat of captaincy, leaving large handsome ears and a strong neck exposed. She was a good-looking-enough woman, but even under other circumstances, I’d’ve disliked her on sight, for the pinch at her nose and cold glint in her squinted eyes.
She said, “Your honored father has been boasting of his only daughter.”
I never had that trick of arching just one eyebrow. Both shot up before my frown mastered them.
“Nothing much to boast of, as you see,” said I.
“Your unrivaled beauty?” suggested the Prickster woman.
“Pah,” was my reply, and several of the other Pricksters nodded in agreement. Not a lot of beauty here, just your average pretty, and only that by candlelight and a kindness of the eye.
“How about your, shall we say, quiet success with your cattle?”
“Annat’s the grandest milk cow in the Wold,” I retorted, bristling. “Wise and mild, as fertile as she’s fair. And Manu’s worth three of any other bull I’ve met. A sweetheart still, for all he’s kept his balls. Bought those cattle both myself from a farm at Quartz-Across-the-Water, with some money my mam left me.”