“What?”
Jackal seemed uncertain. “It kills in a couple hours. You should have felt the paralysis within minutes of being scratched.”
“It’s not that, then,” Styke grunted. He didn’t know what it was, only that it felt like an illness he’d had as a child, and the memory of that time came back to him along with the pain.
He remembered the fever seizing him, sending him to bed for almost two months. He’d drifted in and out, listening to a string of doctors tell his father that he would be dead within days. His mother had sat by his bedside, singing softly, and his baby sister had brought him sweets that she tucked under his tongue so that father wouldn’t find out. He felt as if he could taste those sweets now; the smell of the lemon honey, the slight flavor of ginger as the sweet dissolved. It was strange that he associated something so pleasant with this horrible pain.
He remembered his father pacing the halls outside, arguing loudly with his mother that Styke should be put out of his misery. He could still feel that cold, quiet rage – that determination that he wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction of dying. He didn’t remember growing well. One day, the fever was gone and he could walk again. He’d never had so much as a cold since.
Styke drifted through his memories, feeling the fever wax and wane. The passage of time meant nothing, and at one point he focused on Jackal through bleary eyes. “You were a field laborer?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know about poisons?”
“I . . .” Jackal trailed off, tilting his head to look at Styke. “When I was ten, the orphanage sold me to an apothecary to work as an assistant.”
“Then why the pit were you picking cotton?”
“Because my master used to beat me with a stick. I didn’t like that. She had an accident while I was away on an errand.”
Styke might be feverish, but the way Jackal said “accident” suggested it was otherwise. “How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
Styke tried to feel something. Horror. Empathy. Interest. He couldn’t summon the energy for emotion. “I was around that age when I killed my first,” Styke grunted.
“Another boy?”
“No. Never children. Even the worst little shits should get the chance to see adulthood. It was an older man.”
“Why?”
“Because he deserved it.”
Jackal nodded along, not pressing further, and Styke thought he could see that perpetually angry expression soften. Styke felt tired from talking, his tongue numb and his jaw sore. Perhaps this was the beginning of that paralysis. Perhaps Jackal was right about the fallow root.
“Rumors are spreading about Fernhollow,” Jackal said.
Styke grunted in response.
Jackal went on. “The survivors are saying that you killed seventy or eighty soldiers all on your own to save the town. Is that true?”
“You going to turn me in?”
“I don’t love the Kez any more than Fatrastans. You’re all the same to me. But you saved my life, so no.”
Styke coughed, and it felt like he’d just hacked up a piece of his lung. He waited for his chest to stop throbbing. “It was more like thirty, I think. Forty at most.”
Jackal’s eyebrows rose. “You joke?”
“No.”
“Boast?”
“I’ve got better things to boast about.”
There was a long silence, and then, “I believe you. How did you fight so many?”
“There was little fighting. It is not hard to kill forty men in the dark when their attention is on murder and looting. All it takes is a good knife and the will. I had both.”
Jackal’s brow furrowed, and he watched Styke with what Styke could only guess was concern. His lips pursed and his expression troubled, he said, “If you survive, I’ll come with you.”
“I’m fomenting rebellion,” Styke said.
“How?”
“I stopped by Landfall and made sure the story of Fernhollow would spread quickly. It won’t be hard to trace back to me.”
“The Kez are cruel. I approve.”
“I’m also going to murder the governor.”
“Because he deserves it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a good enough reason.”
Styke tried to scoff, but all the strength had gone out of him. He managed to roll onto his side, his thoughts growing fuzzy. It seemed that he could sense the paralysis now. He closed his eyes against the afternoon sun, clenched his fists, and waited to die.
Someone shook Styke from a feverish dream. He jerked his head to the side, trying to return to the warmth of Rezi’s strong, smoky arms, before remembering where he was.
“You’re not dead,” Jackal said.
“Don’t sound so goddamned surprised.”
“We can’t linger here. The governor’s bodyguards are scouring the countryside in large groups. They are beating the bushes and checking all the groves. If we stay, we’ll be found.”
Styke’s mouth was dry, but every scrap of his clothing soaked through with sweat. He opened his eyes, focusing on Deshnar as the stallion nibbled on the grass of the riverbank. He moved one arm experimentally, then the other. His body still felt uncomfortable, like he was wearing someone else’s skin that didn’t quite fit right, but he was able to move. He was not paralyzed.
He forced himself to sit up and find his saddlebags, searching them for his water skin and taking a long drink. Slowly, uncertainly, he crawled to the edge of the stream and refilled the skin, then dunked his head in the cool water.
“We have to go,” Jackal insisted again.
“How long?”
“Ten minutes at most.”
“Kresimir,” Styke swore. His legs were wobbly, but with the help of the trunk of a young willow, he was able to gain his feet. Jackal stared at him like he’d just crawled out of a grave. Styke felt like he had. “Help me get Deshnar’s saddle on him,” Styke instructed.
They managed to saddle Deshnar and, after an uncomfortably long attempt that included two willows and Jackal’s shoulders beneath Styke’s ass, he was once again sitting in the saddle. He swayed dangerously, gripping the saddle horn with all his strength.
“Where do we go?” he asked, wishing he had the strength to go out and look himself. They were currently protected by the willow grove and the banks of the stream, but it meant he couldn’t see any of the approaches to their position. He could, however, hear shouts in the distance.
Jackal scrambled up and over the bank, returning just a few seconds later. “Downstream! Go!”
Styke prodded Deshnar and leaned over, burying his face in Deshnar’s mane and holding on as tightly as he was able as the stallion sprang into motion, splashing down the center of the river at a leisurely canter. The very motion made Styke want to throw up, each step a jolt that shook his frame in a way he hadn’t experienced since he was first learning to ride.
Jackal sprinted alongside, dodging around trees and clinging to the riverbank with the kind of ease that made Styke suspect he’d done a lot more than pick cotton over the last few years.
Styke listened for the sounds of pursuit – the thunder of hooves, the shouts of men, the blast of a carbine – but none appeared as they followed the stream through the willows. They passed beneath a stone bridge, and soon the banks lowered to the point that they were no longer concealed. Styke could see cotton fields and a plantation house in the distance. He glimpsed a small group of soldiers riding away from them down the road they’d just passed under, and assumed they were part of the search parties Jackal had warned him about.
Jackal waved, slowing down, and Styke followed suit. The ride could not have been longer than a mile, but he was already exhausted, his whole body aching. Beneath him, he could feel Deshnar’s eagerness to break into a full gallop on open ground. That run through the stream had been nothing but a warm-up.