I couldn’t speak. My lungs were burning. My vision was beginning to blur.
Gertriss was screaming at me, as was Marlo. Their voices were growing fainter.
Run into the forest and hope I got beyond the choking spell’s range before I died. Or…
I rummaged in my pocket. Darla’s charm was there.
My world was getting dark. I tried to draw in air, couldn’t. I resisted the urge to flail at the invisible hands closing around my neck.
Instead, I took out the charm, threw it at the skeletal hand.
The charm lay next to the bones, unbroken.
I remember dropping to my knees.
I remember Gertriss holding me up.
And I remember a bright flash. But that’s all. Just a flash, and the echoes of Buttercup’s final cry echoing in my mind.
And then the tightness at my throat circled all around it, and I fell a long time through the dark.
Chapter Eleven
It turns out Marlo saved my life.
He’d taken his axe and smashed the glass charm I’d tossed at the skeletal hand. And as soon as he smashed it, the bones simply fell apart, and after Gertriss slapped me hard across the face a few times I’d started coughing and wheezing.
I don’t remember leaving the abandoned encampment. I came to my senses nearly halfway home, draped across Lumpy’s broad back.
We were moving at a good clip. I’m told Burris loosed a pair of arrows at something he thought he saw in the forest. Gertriss tells me Buttercup followed us until I awoke, though she alone could see her.
Scatter and Lank were at Lumpy’s sides, making sure I didn’t fall off and break my fool neck and finish whatever some nameless sorcerer and his choking spell had begun.
“He’s awake.” Scatter had spoken. He moved in close and helped me right myself in Lumpy’s worn saddle. “Mister, can you breathe?”
I coughed and hacked but finally managed a few words. My throat-well, I’ve never been hanged before, but that must be how the morning after feels.
“You ought to see the bruises, mister.”
I tried to grin.
Gertriss turned in her saddle. “Was that aimed at you, boss?”
Had it been? It seemed that way. Otherwise why didn’t it go after Lady Werewilk?
“Could be,” I croaked. “No way to know.”
And there wasn’t. If it was just a foul-natured parting shot at anyone rummaging through the camp, it might have been designed to go after someone at random as easily as the first one to see it. Sorcerers are tricky that way.
But while they might be tricky, they aren’t cheap. Neither are their magical snares. Someone had paid dearly for the privilege of choking me half to death, and they couldn’t have known for sure I or anyone else would ever uncover their bony little surprise.
I shifted uneasily in my saddle. I don’t like seeing money spent so casually. It’s a sign of either desperation or access to wealth so vast such paltry concerns as paying sorcerers simply isn’t a factor.
Desperate people, like cornered beasts, are always dangerous.
And so are the kinds of people who can literally throw money away. Because they can always buy more trouble than the likes of me can afford.
Lady Werewilk wanted to say something, but I shook my head and urged Lumpy on to a slightly less leisurely amble.
We made it back to House Werewilk without encountering any more cursed skeletal remains or agitated banshees. Lady Werewilk insisted on helping get the mules squared away, much to Marlo’s dismay. Gertriss and I exchanged a secret smile. The way Lady Werewilk and Marlo sniped at each other, you’d think they were married already.
I hoofed it back inside. My throat was raw, and I was coughing often and hard enough to make me wonder if my injuries went deeper than mere bruises.
Once indoors, I shooed dogs off the couch and sent a painter to fetch a bucket of beer. Gertriss seated herself beside me and fixed me in a harsh Hog glare.
“The last thing you need right now is beer.”
“The last thing I need is a discussion about my beer.” A sudden fit of coughing didn’t help my case.
Gertriss’ glare intensified.
“So let’s talk about the banshee instead. She just appeared right by you, Mr. Markhat.”
“I think I prefer boss, Miss.”
“Boss, then. She wasn’t there and then she was. Howling. And it looked like she touched you too. Grabbed your hand.”
I nodded. Had Buttercup been trying to pull me away from the trap? I wanted to think so.
“Did you see her at all before that? Even a glimpse with that famous Hog Sight?”
“No. She wasn’t there. Then she was. Then she was gone, right after Marlo swung that axe at her. Next time I saw her we had you laid across the saddle. I reckon she was maybe fifty feet ahead of us, looking down from an oak.”
I tried to speak but coughed instead.
My bucket of beer arrived. Gertriss rolled her eyes but poured me a glass and even handed it to me.
“You do know banshees only show up when somebody dies, don’t you, boss?”
I let the beer work its golden magic. It did feel good going down.
“Nobody died,” I said. “See? I’m as good as new.”
“Somebody had just died, boss. Weexil. Who knows who else?”
“Weexil had been dead long enough to draw flies. You’re thinking ghouls, Miss. Banshees vacate the scene right after Death performs his handiwork.”
“This ain’t…this isn’t a joke, boss. You can’t go around making pets out of banshees.”
“Pet? What pet? I didn’t call her, didn’t even know she was around. She just appeared.”
Gertriss made a derisive snorting sound.
“Think she was looking for corn bread, boss?”
“How-?”
Gertriss sighed and rose.
“My sight. It isn’t like Mama’s. Isn’t like any Hog I know.” She crossed her arms and began to pace, stepping carefully over dog’s tails now and then. “They can call it up, send it back. Mine-well, I see things all the time. Even things I don’t want to see.” She balled her hands into fists. “Especially things I don’t want to see.”
“Mama know about that?”
Gertriss shook her head no.
I put down my empty glass. “That must be an awful burden.”
She just shrugged. Her jaw was trembling.
“I knew a man during the War who had the Sight. Sort of like yours. Couldn’t make himself see things that might have helped, might have been useful. Saw all kinds of horror instead.”
I poured up a glass of beer, offered it to her. She refused.
“Got worse and worse. He quit sleeping at night. We had to gag him in case he started screaming, when we were in Troll country. You really ought to have a taste. This is really good beer.”
She halted, let out a long ragged sigh, and plopped back down beside me.
Much to my surprise, she took the glass from my hand and sniffed at the contents.
“So what happened to this man?”
“He withdrew. Stopped talking. Went further and further inside himself. One day, six of us were out on patrol. We knew there was a Troll force nearby. We weren’t to engage them, just to watch. Hillard-that was his name, Hillard-saw a pair of trolls fishing in a creek. Before we could stop him, he just walked right up to them, empty-handed. Go ahead. You’ll wish you had.”
She did. I watched her drink it, wondered if it was her first taste of beer.
It was. Her eyes widened. She smiled a ghostly little half-smile.
“This is good.”
“Told you so. Go ahead, that’s yours. One glass won’t make you drunk.”
She took another sip.
“And Hillard? What happened to him?”
“He walked up to the bank. The Trolls came striding out of the water. We were too far away to hear, but I think they talked, for a moment.”
“And?”
“And then a Troll knocked Hillard’s head off. One swipe. Dead and gone.”
Gertriss shivered. “Is there a point to this, boss?”
“The point is that I’ll always believe Hillard asked that Troll to kill him. It wasn’t murder, or even an act of war. It was a mercy. And that’s sad, Miss, because if Hillard had made himself talk about his Sight, about what was eating him alive, he might be sitting on a couch somewhere telling war stories to pretty young women instead of …”