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Another morning with nothing for breakfast and I got to thinking that come the end of my trials I would be as thin as a blade of grass. Smidgen never said a word though I knew that he was hungry too and I didn’t like the way he kept looking across at my horse. Both of us were quiet, sombrely so. There was still no sign of Bent and, hunger aside, there was little to feel merry about. We were going to Never to confront the Tracker. Anything could happen between here and that grand city and once we arrived there was no guarantee of surviving the inevitable confrontation.
Smidgen looked about as miserable as I felt.
Ordesky affected my mood too, or rather, thinking about him did. I now felt anxious, fearing for his life. Last night I’d realised he wasn’t the best at taking care of himself and anyone who’d want to get to me would see him as an easy target.
I should’ve found him the night I fled Never. Found and taken him away with me. Never was a couple of weeks ride away and anything could happen to him in that time. I owed him my sword.
Here’s to a swift trip, I hoped, kicking my heels into the flanks of my nag and, just as she started forward, something burst out of the tree line. It was brown and hairy and rolled up tight like a ball and made straight for me.
It bounced three times and on the third contact with the road it unfurled. It was a Turned, about the height of a tall child so considerably shorter than me. I pulled hard on the reins and screamed at Smidgen to swing about and notice. Smidgen wasn’t the most agile of riders so slid off of his nag and charged the thing on foot.
My heart was pounding hard as I watched the Turned slink across the road towards me. It was mindful of Smidgen though not fearful and as it came closer its jaws hammered up and down as if it intended to bite great chunks out of my flesh.
The moment Smidgen drew close the Turned snapped back up into a ball and Smidgen whacked it with his mace, sending it soaring back into the tree line from where it had come. It hit a tree trunk and came ricocheting towards me, howling as it cut through the cool morning air. I caught it full in the face and chest and was sent whirling off my saddle and landed hard on the road and let out a whimper as hot pain shot down my back.
I had to get up, get my sword out and stand and fight but I was still reeling from the pain. I heard Smidgen roar and the ball hit the ground next to me and I rolled to my feet, pulling my sword from the scabbard tied to my back, and twirled the blade ready to cut when two more Turned broke through the trees.
“They’re from Black Pots,” I found myself saying, recognising them from the jetty in that infested town.
A sudden wave of nausea overcame me and I fought the urge to vomit. An inexplicable cramp formed in my guts and my back still hurt from falling off my horse but I had to stand and fight.
I heard Smidgen yell, “Get behind me, Flendin.” I raised my sword and something glanced off of it. Then the ball Turned struck the ground behind me, unfurled, and hit me for a second time. Smidgen wielded his mace two-handed but he missed the Turned for it was a thing of sudden movements and was hard to anticipate as it rolled away from him. I panicked and lashed out with my feet, somehow managing to kick it away but the other two Turned were immediately upon us.
I found the stench of the creatures almost too much to suffer and threw a hand to my mouth and gagged and fat tears welled in my eyes blinding me. These Turned stank of rotting flesh and with every movement they made the smell seemed to become stronger, more sickening, and I retched and heaved my stomach up until sticky bile clogged my beard hairs.
One fisted a distended hand and swung for me. It hit me in the chest and I couldn’t catch my balance and I fell backwards. The hit had been a thing of magic and as I lay crippled it continued to hurt, feeling like a red-hot coal searing through the layers of clothing and skin. The pain never lessened with time, just felt worse and worse until I felt as if I would have to pass out to escape the relentless agony. I screamed and writhed and all the time Smidgen fended off the Turned by tentatively fighting around me. Mindful of where he danced as he fought for fear of stamping my life away.
Then the ball bounced back and I struck it away with a well-timed knee jab, winching all the time at this pain screaming in my chest.
A blur of bodies and one of the fetid Turned made to trample my face into the dirt track. I rolled where I lay, missing its slamming foot by an inch and no more. It hopped about like a thing maddened by bee stings, this time bringing a foot down even closer to my head.
I swung my sword out sideways and the stamping leg flew up in the air, dismembered. A deluge of putrid blood gushed from the stump and, unbalanced, the Turned fought to grab a hold of something to steady itself with.
It found nothing and before the Turned could hit the ground Smidgen exploded its head with a downward mash of his mace and I would have cheered if it weren’t for the agony I was suffering. I put a hand to my chest and tears of pain welled up in my eyes all over again. Damn the pain, I thought. Damn it.
Gore painted the road red yet, amazingly, the thing still came after me.
I got up quick, in spite of the pain and danced across the road spinning my sword ready to strike again.
The beheaded Turned wormed across the road making a play for my feet. I brought my sword down first on one of its thrashing arms and then the other. I would hack it to pieces if necessary.
Smidgen swung his mace underarm, catching the second death-smelling Turned under its chin, wrenching its head clean off its shoulders. A plume of red followed the head in a downward arc and yet the creature still came for him. I sliced it in its side as I had with that woman in Bush, only this time the cut was complete and the top half toppled free from the bottom and landed with a splat next to the legs.
Smidgen took several rushed steps back as he scanned for the ball Turned. “Look out,” he screamed.
I ducked, bringing my arms over my head to protect myself, unaware that I still had hold of my sword and as the ball came hurtling down it impaled itself upon the short blade. The staggering weight of it toppled me and I slipped back onto the road and the Turned, along with my sword, rolled away from me.
“Smidge’,” I called after him, too exhausted to find him with my eyes.
“I’m okay, okay,” he shouted back.
Three Turned were down only so was I. My breathing was heavy and hard and I was still in incredible pain. I rolled to my side and from that position managed to stand. With the last of my strength I put a foot on the ball Turned and both hands on my sword and pulled it free with a sickening squelch.
I looked across to Smidgen. He was stood dead centre of the road, mace gripped in a giant hand and he was covered head to foot in dark, red blood. Those Turned had been so pumped full of the stuff the whole road looked to be covered in it. I felt sticky, a sure sign I was drenched in it too. With the back of my hand I cleaned blood off of my brow before it could run into my eyes and blind me.
We stood there for moments longer, one either end of the road looking at all the carnage between us. The hacked bodies of the Turned were twitching. They were still driven to kill but we’d damaged their bodies beyond use and they struggled to move. I recalled that Smidgen, as usual, was hungry.
“Clean them up,” I suggested, looking away. I felt sick enough as it was.
––––––––
The nags had wandered a little and were found grazing in the short grass by the tree line.
“Those Turned were from Black Pots,” I said, feeling so tired I could just roll forward in the saddle and fall asleep. It wasn’t from the heat of the day or the exertion of fighting, there was more to my sudden tiredness. It was like I was ill.
Smidgen checked the canvas bag was still attached to the back of his saddle before he mounted up. “Then what does that say of Bent?” he asked.
I shrugged. “That’s what worries me,” I sighed. Had they killed Bent? Then the old suspicion leaked into my mind. What if Bent had directed them to us? Would these insecurities regarding Bent ever leave me? I winched with pain, nearly swooned out of the saddle. “Best get a move on,” I mumbled.
“Where to?”
“North.”
“Claw? We should give Claw a wide berth. I don’t want to get too close to that place after what happened there. Flendin are you all right? You don’t look too good.”
“We can pass close by to Claw without entering it. Stick to the smaller villages. Places like Troll. We’re going to need somewhere to rest, to get cleaned up.” More pain and I groaned but I think it was lessening now. The Turned sure had hit me hard.
––––––––
By mid-morning the blood had dried to a hard crust and I picked the worst off as I sat in the saddle. It didn’t bother Smidgen though and he seemed gloriously unaffected being covered in old Turned blood. It added to the ugliness that was Smidgen. To the unfamiliar eye he was more monster than man, especially now he was as red as a bedevilled moon. I hoped for a heavy downpour to wash away the muck, as he was already a focus for trouble without looking so obvious.
It didn’t rain but better still we didn’t meet any more surprises on the road, Turned or otherwise. At one point a line of armoured riders rode past oblivious to us and I reasoned they’d be more of the army rushing south. Since the King had been killed there’d been, and continued to a lesser degree now days had passed, a race to reach the capitol, Vague. Alliances had to be forged quickly, power jostled with. There was no royal heir. This would be survival of the fittest and the strongest most ruthless combatant would be crowned the new King.
A curving line of hardened earth vied to the left of the main road and disappeared through tall, wind-bent bushes. That would be to Troll. We didn’t want Troll but it headed north and it wasn’t Claw so we took the narrow path anyway.
Now off the thoroughfare I felt myself relax a little as I didn’t feel as exposed. We would be more vulnerable on such a confined route, hemmed in on all sides by tall, barb-headed bushes, but who would think to look for us so far from the main road? The pain in my chest had lessened a little but the feeling of nausea felt worse now. We hadn’t eaten all day so I put some of my discomfort down to that.
Despite the late time of the year marsh flies zipped across the path ahead of us. They moved in little clouds, darting from bush to bush, wings humming. I was feeling warm so undid the first three buttons of my coat. I could almost enjoy myself if I didn’t feel so unwell. A sticky sweat had now formed upon my brow and my tongue felt thick and oily. I doubted if I could eat even if we had some food.
We soon came to an acute bend in the path. Right on the heel of the bend I spied a bridge through gaps in the vegetation and could smell the water it spanned, thick frog spawned and marshy smelling. Troll was a fenland, sparsely populated and rarely visited. It had a narrow peninsula that dipped into the Barian Sea, but it was hard to build on the marshland so it was no good for commerce. We like so many before us, blanked Troll and kept the bridge to our left and rode right on by.
“Claw’s that-a-way,” Smidgen reminded me as we rode past.
“We’ll keep it near to us. Keep it to our left side,” I said back.
The path quickly became overgrown and I had leaves and stalks and branches combing my head and brushing against my face as I rode down it. Smidgen was spluttering and cursing and I heard him spitting little insects out of his mouth. Being way bigger than me he was having a hard time squeezing down the narrowing pathway. Then, just as it had moved him to the brink of fitting, it all opened out and there before us was a modest looking building and not a road bisecting Claw and Troll as I’d expected.
“It’s a mill,” I observed and something about it bothered me. It was quiet here, too quiet. Even in my sickened condition the hairs on the back of my neck prickled with precognition. I couldn’t hear the water wheel turn, nor were there machine noises coming from inside the mill. It was abandoned. “Here,” I said making to get off my nag. Smidgen hurried across to help me. “Just put me on the ground,” I ordered and he did so.
Then Smidgen led the horses to a rail and secured their reins to it. “He’s a long way from anyone isn’t he?” He meant the miller.
“Have to build where the water dictates you can. There has to be a step in the stream for the water to fall down. Take the bag with you.”
Smidgen doubled back to unpick the bag from his saddle and then he picked me up to carry me. Just because we thought we were isolated it didn’t mean we were. I chanced a skittish look behind us. Some birds took to the sky and somewhere close by something warbled. Other than that it was still, like standing in a picture.
There was a waterwheel to the side of the building, not moving, entrenched in the thick smelly water that oozed down from Troll’s fenland. A kind of greenish growth formed on the exposed paddles of the wheel, drooping down in fronds like old-mans-beard. A bubble popped in the water followed by expanding rings and I looked but it was too murky to make any fish out. Unlikely, I told myself; unlikely that anything lived in that stagnation.
“Get in,” I motioned towards the water with my head. It had to be done, despite how dirty the water looked or how gruesome a face Smidgen pulled. “Lower me in first then jump in.”
We kept our clothes on whilst we bathed. We bobbed around for a bit like sticks in a strong current. Despite neither of us being good swimmers we didn’t want to create waves as the water smelt almost as bad as Smidgen did. I pretend scrubbed yet plenty of detritus bobbed to the surface of the oily water and I reckoned I would weigh half as much as I used to once I got out and drip-dried in the air.
Smidgen cracked a smile and I guessed this would be the first time he’d been in water. He floundered around and I circled him, keeping a distance from the wheel in case it suddenly groaned into life and dragged me to the bottom of the stream.
Smidgen still had a knot of dried blood in his hair so cupping my hands together I threw water over him. For the first time ever I saw the man really enjoy himself and his whole face wrinkled up with happiness. “Good isn’t it?” I said and he paddled over towards me. “Come on, time we got out. We’re clean enough for today.”
“I feel better,” he confessed.
“Of course you do,” I said back.
We laid out like suffocating fish on the banks of the stream and let the sun dry us. We’d been resting for little over an hour when the pain in my chest returned and I brought my knees up by my stomach and winced.
“What, what is it?” enquired Smidgen. He had a hand to my brow in an instant like that gesture could make a difference, could save me from the agonising pain I was suffering.
“I can’t feel my legs, Smidge’,” I gasped, aware as three shadows fell upon us.
“What have we got here?” said one of the strangers.
My vision was blurred and I couldn’t make them out. They appeared as indistinct shapes that, one after another, leered close and poked sticks at us, testing our responsiveness, how much life we still contained.
“Leave them Smidgen,” I bade with a feeble croak, talking was almost too much effort though I stopped him from eating them just as it looked like he might. “Leave them be and pick me up.”
“You heard him creature, pick him up and follow us.”
Smidgen’s strong arms cradled me securely to his chest and I slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.