The Dark God: Servant Part 33

He reached out for the trunk of the giant old elm, his fingers spread wide, reached out with toes and knees, reached out and grasped it in a bear hug. He clung to the rough bark with all his strength.

He expected to fall, to dash his worthless brains on the ground below, but he didn't. His fingers, like his arms and legs, were full of life, and he clung to the trunk like some great, four-legged insect.

It was odd. He had to breathe like he was straining under a great weight, but it did not feel like a great weight. It felt easy and natural.

He looked down. While he hadn't made the branch he was aiming for, he was high enough to be covered by a large block of leaves.

Lightheadedness washed over him. He was panting. Hyperventilating. But he couldn't stop. He felt dizzy. The world below began to spin.

He was going to lose his grip.

Talen closed his eyes. The fat branch above was not so far away. If he could get to it and rest, he was sure the lightheadedness would pa.s.s.

Talen gripped the tree with his arms and legs and s.h.i.+mmied up. He found it easy as climbing a ladder. In moments, with barely a sc.r.a.pe of sound, he reached the branch. With a final move, he pulled himself on top of the branch and straddled it. He looked down and couldn't believe his height, nor could he see a way back down.

He looked about, trying to catch his breath. But the breath wouldn't come. He was panting, straining, laboring for air. He was suffocating.

The edges of his vision began to blur.

Talen struggled for another breath, but he couldn't get enough air.

He couldn't breathe!

And then his vision narrowed and the last thing he thought was that he'd better collapse onto this branch squarely because a fall from this height would surely kill him.

26.

Baker's Herbs TALEN FOUND HIMSELF face-first on the branch. He was still straddling it, still panting, but not suffocating like he had been before. He reached up and felt the wetness on his cheek. He'd bloodied his nose. Bloodied a small circle of the branch for that matter.

The men stood below him. "He's not here," one said. "There's not one leaf that's bent out of place."

"Then he jumped out earlier," said the one who had first commanded Nettle to stop. "Where is he?"

"I told you," said Nettle. "He's headed west. They've got family out there."

"Maybe we'll take you along just to make sure."

"Have they arrested my father?" asked Nettle.

Talen heard one of the men spit.

A beat pa.s.sed.

"No, they haven't," said Nettle. His voice changed. It rung with confidence. "My family dined with the warlord's just last week. We're set to dine again. Maybe I should pa.s.s your names along, let the lord know you have issues with his choice."

They did not immediately respond to Nettle's threat.

One finally spoke up. "We're wasting time here."

"He's not telling us something," said another.

"Interrogate him then. I told you we should have broken up into groups. I'm going back to look for spoor along the trail."

Saddles and harness creaked below as men mounted up. A horse stamped its foot.

"I'm going to be watching you," a man said. Talen thought he recognized that voice, but couldn't place it.

"Good," said Nettle. "Then when it comes to it, we'll know exactly where to find you."

The men urged their horses forward with grunts and clicks, and then the horses thudded away.

Talen watched them through the trees, but dared not say a word. Perhaps it was a ruse, one or two of them staying behind. So he waited. As he did, the itch to move began building in his limbs again. Or maybe it had never gone away. His breathing had eased, but he was still light-headed.

"Talen," Nettle called up.

Talen didn't dare move.

"They're gone."

Talen looked below to see if any of them were hiding.

"Talen," Nettle hissed. "Get your Koramite a.r.s.e down here. We need to put some distance between us and that pack of goat-s.h.a.ggers."

Talen looked at the ground so very far below. How in the world had he gotten this high? "I don't know how to get down," he said.

"Jump," said Nettle. "I'll catch you."

Talen smiled. And it was enough to take the edge off his fear. He saw a branch he could let himself down to. He s.h.i.+nnied up; he could s.h.i.+nny down. And so he carefully made his way down to one of the monstrous lower limbs and then down to the ground.

Nettle held a hand to his ear. Blood stained his fingers.

"Did they cut you?"

"You owe me," said Nettle. He pulled his hand away. The ear was b.l.o.o.d.y and sliced.

"Goh!" said Talen. "That's going to require sewing."

"Just get into the wagon bed."

Talen put a hand on the sideboard and sprang over. "We're not going to be able to take the normal roads home."

"Brilliant deduction," said Nettle.

"And there's something else." His legs, arms, his whole body itched to move. "I'm not quite right."

"You've never been right," said Nettle. "You're only now just figuring that out?"

"No," said Talen. "I'm telling you, something inside is very, very wrong."

It made no sense. Talen knew a Koramite boy in the district who had difficulty breathing and was always carrying camphor of peppermint about to clear his lungs, but this didn't feel like he couldn't get air. This felt like he did when he sprinted a great distance, except he hadn't sprinted, hadn't felt any awful exertion.

Talen fetched one of the last sweet almond small cakes and examined it. "Taste this."

"I don't want your nasties."

"Taste it. I think our baker put come-backs in here."

Nettle took the small cake, broke it, and examined the pieces. "If anything's in here, then the baker must have ground it into powder." He took a nibble and grimaced. "Augh," he said. "There could be horse plop in here and it wouldn't taste any worse." He handed the small cake bits back to Talen.

"What do you think he put in here?"

Nettle looked up at the tree Talen had jumped into. "I don't know. That's quite a jump you made."

"What are you saying?"

"I want to try something," he said. "Take the reins. Swing the wagon round and approach the spot like we did before."

"Don't we need to get out of here?"

Nettle ripped a band of cloth from his tunic and wrapped it around his head to cover his bleeding ear. "Just do it," he said.

Talen climbed onto the wagon seat and took the reins. Then he turned the wagon around, and approached the tree as they had before. Nettle stood on the wagon seat as Talen had when he'd jumped. They rolled under the tree. Nettle leapt at the spot Talen had, trying for the branch, and grabbed nothing but air. He landed with a grunt and rolled.

He stood and put a hand back to his ear, leaves clinging to his back. "How close did I come?"

He hadn't come close at all. "Two maybe three feet away. You're about as lively as a pile of lead."

"I don't think it's lead."

"Inferior breeding then. What are you trying to prove?"

Nettle looked at him, sober as stone. "Are you positive that girl didn't do something to you?"

Of course, he was positive. "This odd exhilaration didn't start until we left the city gates. I'm telling you: it's come-backs. I'll bet your smelly little linens on it."

"Maybe," said Nettle. "But what herb changes a man that much?"

"Maybe I've got stag legs," said Talen.

"You've got the legs of a scarecrow," said Nettle.

"Then you're a p.i.s.s poor jumper," said Talen. "Try it again."

"I saw you up there, clinging like a bug. It wasn't natural."

"Try it again," Talen said. He didn't want to hear this. Lords, if this was sleth work, if that girl had somehow seeded some abomination into him-but it couldn't be. She hadn't.

Nettle climbed back up on the wagon. Talen wheeled around again.

"Concentrate," said Talen.

Nettle crouched. He breathed deeply. He jumped. But he didn't come close to anything except spraining his ankle.

Nettle picked himself up and dusted off his hands. He looked up at the tree, then at Talen.

"Poor boy," Talen said and made a small grunt of empathy. "All your da's gold and cattle and you can't out-jump a runt like me."

Nettle pressed his hand to his ear and gave Talen the eye.

"Don't look at me like that," said Talen.

"Maybe sleth magic is like some mushroom that takes a while to work its effects."

"She was on my lap and then almost immediately off again," said Talen. "She didn't have time to do anything."

Nettle raised his eyebrows. "She had time to kiss you."

"Yeah, well. What's a kiss? Nothing."

"Right," said Nettle And then Talen thought about what the girl had said about coming up from the cellar and sneaking around the house in the night. She could have worked some magic then. She'd almost admitted doing just that.

"Rot those hatchlings," Talen said.

Talen looked at the sweet almond small cake in his hand. "What we need to do is get one of these to River. She can ferret out what the baker used."

Nettle climbed back up on the seat. "And if it isn't come-backs?"

"Then I'll become a sleth toy," said Talen. "And my first depredation will be to wring your neck." He handed the reins to Nettle and climbed out of the wagon.

"What are you doing?" asked Nettle.

"Getting away from your stink," Talen said.

Now that Talen had said it, he realized that he did smell more than before. Or that what he did smell was stronger. The smell of Iron Boy, the road dust, the woods, Nettle's clothes that had sat in a cedar chest-the scents all lay heavily in the air.

What's more, the itch in his limbs was building, almost compelling him to move. "I'm going to jog a bit," he said. "All we've got to do is work these come-backs through my system. A few hours and I'll be right as rain."

Hunger stood in a grove of trees smelling the dead hanging about him, smelling the burning boy on the breeze. The boy had been here. Been here recently.