2
In Tharn Valley, it began with a bad tooth. Bulion Tharn was no stranger to having teeth pulled. Any man who lived long enough to outlast his teeth had been blessed by the fates—that was how he liked to look on the matter. He had been fortunate in having Glothion around. Glothion was the blacksmith, the largest of his sons, with limbs like an oak. Old teeth tended to shatter when gripped with pliers, but Glothion could pull them with his bare fingers. It felt as if he were about to snap the jawbone and the way he steadied his victim’s head under his arm would surely crush some unfortunate’s skull one day, but nine times out of ten he could yank a tooth cleanly out.
This time had been one of the other times. Bulion should have stood the pain a week or two longer, perhaps, to let the rotting molar rot some more. He hadn’t. He’d been in too much of a hurry, and Glothion had pulled the crown off.
That meant real bloodshed. Wosion had insisted they wait three days, until the fates were propitious, and by then Bulion had been almost out of his mind with the pain. It had taken Glothion and Brankion and Zanion to hold their father down while Wosion himself tried to cut out the roots with a dagger.
He hadn’t found all of them, obviously. Now, two days later, Bulion’s face was swollen like a pumpkin and nigh hot enough to set his beard on fire. He was running a fever. The pain was a constant throb of lightning all through his head.
He was very likely going to die of this.
There were surgeons in Daling. The odds that he could survive the two-day ride there were slim. The odds that any leech or sawbones could help him now were even slimmer.
It seemed the fates were ready to close the book on Bulion Tharn.