“You’re a monster,” the peddler said, sobbing. “A monster.”
Zeeahd roughly released his hold on Minser’s hair. “You have Abelar Corrinthal to thank for that, peddler.”
Sayeed watched the devils work with a peculiar sense of detachment. He knew he should feel something-horror, sympathy, elation, something. But he felt nothing except tired. He might as well have been watching the slaughter of dinner chickens. He just wanted to get on with finding the abbey, the Oracle, and end his perpetual self-loathing and bitterness.
He ran his fingertips over his cheek and felt only smooth skin. The grooves that Elle’s nails had carved in his face had already healed. Everything healed. Except his spirit. That wound where it should have been had never healed and never would.
“The Lord of Cania will cure us, Sayeed,” Zeeahd said, as if reading his thoughts. “We need only get to the Oracle and from him, learn the location of Cale’s son.” He kicked Minser. “And now we have a way.”
Fewer screams carried from the village. The devils had killed most everything. Sayeed heard mostly the sound of feeding, tearing meat.
Sayeed put a boot in Minser’s belly. The peddler groaned, curled up into a fetal position on the ground. “And if this oaf cannot lead us to the abbey? He said-”
“He can and he will,” Zeeahd answered. “Won’t you, Minser?”
The peddler made no answer other than sobs.
When the devils had devoured their fill of the corpses, they stalked back to Zeeahd and Sayeed. Minser covered his eyes at their approach.
Their yellow, reptilian eyes glared at Sayeed as they passed.
“Back now,” Zeeahd said.
“We serve,” one of the devils croaked, and each went to the bag of cat skin it had vacated, picked up the fur, extended the mouth over their horned heads, and began to squirm back inside. They seemed to diminish as they wriggled and writhed their way back into cat form. Soon the devils were gone and thirteen cats stared at Zeeahd and Sayeed.
“The woman?” Sayeed asked, although he suspected he knew the answer.
“I have something special for her rude mouth,” Zeeahd said. His bare, scarred, distended stomach began to lurch and roll as he dredged up the poison he carried within him. “Put her on the deck.”
Sayeed picked Elle up under her armpits and dragged her atop the deck. Her eyelids fluttered open when Sayeed dropped her there. She sat up, still woozy, recoiling as Zeeahd advanced on her, his body heaving with the effort to expel the darkness within him.
“Please, don’t,” Elle said, backing away crabwise. “I’m with child.”
“Not anymore,” Zeeahd said, the words distorted by the black phlegm filling his mouth and dribbling down his chin. As quick as an adder, he lunged forward, grabbed her by the wrists, and pinned her arms to her sides. He leaned in toward her face, his mouth open, drooling. She clamped her mouth shut, turned her head from side to side, making little grunts of fear.
Sayeed sheathed his sword and walked away. He’d rather survey the slaughter of Fairelm than watch his brother purge. He felt eyes on him and realized that several of the cats were following him, or perhaps they wished to revisit their slaughter.
Looking on the cats, Sayeed imagined something lurking within Zeeahd, too, some secret form waiting to burst forth from his brother the way the devils had heaved themselves out of the cats.
Blood, bodies, and gore littered the village’s streets and buildings. The eyes of the villagers-where eyes still remained-stared accusations at him. Seeing the blood and death, he thought it was good that he no longer had a soul. If he had, by now it would be a withered, shriveled remnant of feeling, a thing that brought only pain, far worse than nothing.
Chapter Eight
Gerak awoke shivering, face down in the sodden whipgrass, the taste of Sembia’s wretched soil in his mouth. He lifted himself to all fours, his body rebelling at even that slight exertion, and forced himself to his feet. The rain had stopped. He eyed the dark slate of the sky, the shadowpolluted air. How long had he been asleep? Was it evening? He’d completely lost his sense of time.
He blinked away his exhaustion, slapped his face a few times, and started moving again. Thinking of Elle, of the baby, brought him strength. Exertion warmed his body, loosened his muscles, and soon he was making good progress. He alternately ran, jogged, or walked, stopping only to drink.
He saw the village’s elms ahead, their massive height materializing out of the shadowy fog like columns supporting the sky. He did not smell any chimney fires, and their absence caused him a pang of concern.
He found the road that led through the gateway elms and picked up his pace. He was running by the time he entered the village.
Twenty paces in, he found a body. Or the pieces of a body. A headless torso lay in the street, the entrails spilling into the mud. Torn clothing, partially eaten flesh. The rest of the remains lay scattered elsewhere in the road, a head, an arm.
He stared at it for a long moment, unable to process what he was seeing. When the reality finally registered, bile rose and he vomited.
Another body lay nearby, the throat torn open, the abdomen split and emptied, the ribs visible.
A dead cow lay in a nearby pen, flayed, the exposed muscles glistening wetly, the poor creature’s mouth frozen open in a scream of agony.
Gerak couldn’t breathe. His heart was a drum in his chest. His vision blurred. He feared he would vomit again.
Something had come in from the plains, it must have, and attacked the village-some horror created by the Shadovar.
He started running for his cottage, heading around the edge of the village, spitting puke as he ran. He slowed enough to draw his sword, his fist white around the hilt. A buzz filled his ears, the muffled, internal roar of growing panic. He stumbled, slipped, and fell in the mud, but rose and ran on. Tears poured down his cheeks. Someone was speaking, despondent murmurings that sounded like a foreign language. It was him, he realized, the words drawn from his throat by the hook of his despair.
“Not Elle. Not Elle. Not Elle.”
He passed more and more bodies, more body parts both human and animal, people he knew, friends and neighbors. Blood spattered everything. Viscera festooned fences and doorways as if placed there as part of some celebration of horror. He did not stop to look at the remains with care. He feared what he would see. Nothing was more important than getting to his cottage, to Elle. Nothing.
“Please, Elle. Please. Please. Please.”
The cottage stood ahead, the door still closed. He saw no blood or bodies near it and prayed that Elle had hidden herself somehow, maybe in the shed. He slammed into the door, nearly knocked it from its hinges.
“Elle! Elle!”
She wasn’t inside.
His heart fell to his feet.
The smell of her stew, still warm in the cauldron over the hearth’s embers, filled the cottage, and its familiarity brought him to his knees. He dropped bow and sword, covered his face, and wailed like a child. Everything drained out of him. He did not even feel anger. He just felt. . empty, hollow, a ghost, a shadow.
He cursed himself again and again. He should have taken her away from Fairelm years ago, left the village and the thrice-damned realm of the Shadovar. He would blame himself forever, hate himself forever. He never should have left her to hunt. He should have been here to defend her.
As if of its own accord, his hand went to the skinning knife he kept on his belt. He drew it from its sheath, held its blade before him, eyed the edge he kept so meticulously sharp. It could cut flesh and veins with the lightest touch, a simple pass over his wrist, a momentary flash of pain. He extended his arm, held the blade over his arm, saw the veins pulsing under his skin. Tears blurred his vision. He could join Elle with the smallest of gestures, the slightest movement.