Mala only had to look at this warrior’s face to know the gray horse’s death was a devastating loss . . . and to know that he would not welcome her sympathy.
Her chest tight, she strode around the wagons, the red cloak sweeping out behind her. Ahead, two men squabbled over a limping ox. A gray-hair held a butcher’s blade. The younger barred his way. They both fell silent when Mala pushed past them, and she ended the argument with a swing of her axe. Another valuable animal dead—but this one not a complete loss.
She pointed to the teeth marks on the ox’s flank. “Cut away the poisoned flesh. The remaining meat can be saved.”
Without waiting for a response, she sought the next infected ox. The old butcher followed her—his knife sheathed now, and his gaze on Mala, not the animal. “It has been many years since anyone wearing the questing cloak has passed through Blackmoor.”
Probably not since Anumith the Destroyer had razed Vela’s temples and slaughtered her oracles. A full generation. Mala did not say that in her homeland of Krimathe, old men such as he were just as rare. The Destroyer hadn’t left any young men alive, so there were none to grow old.
She only said, “I am not passing through—and don’t eat this one.” Teeth clenched, she silenced a bloodied and bleating goat. The animal’s eyes had already begun to redden; the poison had infected its brain. “What fouled these creatures?”
“A tusker,” the old man said.
Her breath stopped in her chest. A long-haired mountain of an animal, tuskers were strong and aggressive, with enormous jaws guarded by long, razored tusks. A beast, if ever there was one. “Possessed by a demon?”
“It is.”
Then unlike the revenants, the tusker wasn’t poisoned. A demon’s evil inhabited the beast’s flesh, instead, giving it terrible strength beyond its own. Because a demon had great power, but like a god, it needed flesh to use that power. Unlike gods, however, the demon didn’t work through the living or the willing; demons possessed dead flesh, which could give no consent—and could not withdraw it. After a demon inhabited a body, its corruption fouled all that it touched. The possessed creature could only be stopped if its magical protections were breached and the demon within slain, or if a sorcerer released it from the flesh.
For the first time since visiting Vela’s new temple and receiving her quest, real unease stalked Mala’s heart. She expected pain. She expected to be driven to the edge of her endurance. But she’d also expected to find an animal in Blackmoor, not an abomination.
Why hadn’t the goddess asked her to slay the demon? Such a dangerous and laborious task was well worthy of any quest. But to tame a demon? It would be easier to tame one of the thunder lizards in the southern jungles—if such a thing was possible at all.
But it must be, or Vela wouldn’t have sent her here. The goddess wouldn’t have given her a task that couldn’t be completed. Only those who doubted her or who proved unworthy failed their quests.
Mala wouldn’t fail. If she had to tame a demon, then she would tame a demon. “How long has it plagued these lands?”
“It is said that the demon was imprisoned beneath the fiery mountains to the north until the Destroyer released it from that prison and helped it possess the tusker’s flesh.”
Many evils were said to be the Destroyer’s doing. Often, it was truth. But that sorcerer was not responsible for every evil laid at his feet. “‘It is said’? You don’t remember?”
The lines in the old butcher’s face deepened, and his voice hollowed. “When so many evils come to your home at once, where they hailed from ceases to matter. It only matters when they leave.”
The demon tusker hadn’t left. But if Mala tamed it, perhaps she could send it away.
With renewed determination, she continued past the caravan, to where a brown horse lay thrashing on the wet earth. Another swing of her axe finished the grisly task. The rain was subsiding when she returned to the wagons. Those travelers who were not grieving or tending the wounded had begun to restore order to the train, and she felt their gazes upon her. Some appeared curious. Most were wary and wore an air of resignation—as if they wouldn’t have been surprised if Mala had only helped save them from the revenants so that she could destroy the caravan herself.
As if they had learned never to trust those with strength, or those who were supposed to protect them.
Including the warrior who had risked his life for theirs? But at least one person seemed to trust him. Mala paused at the edge of the barricade. Still on his feet, he was wading through the heap of revenants, a gore-covered saddle slung over his shoulder. So he’d gone in after his horse—and his sword. With a blue scarf now covering her yellow hair and a sling supporting her arm, the woman who had chased after the boy was offering him a large wineskin, but the warrior didn’t take it.
The woman thrust it toward him again. Her voice rose with frustration. “You will soon need this more than we will, Kavik.”
Kavik. He knew Mala stood watching; he’d spotted her the moment she’d come around the wagon. His gaze rested on her face for an instant before he shook his head and responded to the woman. Mala could hear the deep gravel of his voice, but couldn’t make out his reply.
But he’d clearly refused the wineskin again. When the warrior walked stiffly past the woman, striding across the thickening pools of blood toward the wagons, she determinedly stalked after him. “What harm will come to me? Lord Barin’s reach doesn’t extend past the river.”
This time he was close enough for Mala to hear his answer. “And your family? Your husband’s family? Even after you have gone, they will still reside in this land.”
All at once, the fight seemed to leave the woman. Despair and helplessness darkened her expression as she turned her face away, her jaw working as if she could taste the words she wanted to say, but knew uttering them wouldn’t make any difference.
The warrior looked to Mala again, but he came no nearer. With a heavy sigh, the woman brushed past him. Tears glittered in her eyes when she stopped in front of Mala and bowed her covered head.
“I am Telani, and I stand forever in your debt.” Her voice was thick. “My boy only lives because you helped us.”
All of these people lived only because of the man behind her, but Mala would not be so quick to reject the woman’s offering.
“My mount needs to quench his thirst,” she said, then gestured to the wineskin. “What do you carry?”
“Water.” With renewed irritation, the woman shot a glance at the warrior, whose dark gaze had not left Mala’s face. As a stranger to them, she expected to be watched. Unlike the travelers, however, Kavik didn’t appear wary. Instead he looked at her with an expression both haunted and fervid, as if he saw his death approaching, yet could not bear to glance away from it.
“Water will do.” And she wanted to know why this woman had told the warrior that he would soon need it, but only asked, “How fares the boy?”
“We will know when the fever passes.” With dirty fingers, Telani touched her injured shoulder. “Several of us will.”
Though humans couldn’t be transformed into revenants, the creatures’ poison produced a dangerous fever. There were remedies for it, but Mala supposed that few of Nemek’s healers journeyed to Blackmoor to sell their wares—or if they had, their bones were littered beside the river. Fortunately she had encountered several during her travels.
“Go and tend to him, then,” Mala told her. “I will see to my horse and this man, then come to you with a salve to draw out the venom.”
The woman’s renewed gratitude sat uneasily on Mala’s shoulders. If Mala was to tame a demon, and if the salve was not readily available in Blackmoor, she might soon be in dire need of it. But Vela never offered the easy path. If giving the salve to these travelers meant that Mala would soon suffer a revenant’s fever, then she would suffer it—and trust that her own strength and the goddess’s generosity would see her through it.