He groaned as he climbed back into the saddle the second day, tugging at his armour.
‘Links pinching?’ Derek asked.
‘More like my gut squeezing,’ Ragen said. ‘Gained a pound or two since I last wore it.’
Elissa laughed. ‘Ay, just one or two. Like me when I was pregnant.’
‘Night, I hope it’s not that bad,’ Ragen said, pulling back smoothly to avoid Elissa’s playful smack.
Derek laughed, patting his own slender belly. ‘Easy to keep the weight off when you eat road fare most nights.’
‘Ay,’ Ragen said, ‘but you slow down when the years mount, Derek. Fire doesn’t burn as hot, but we keep piling the logs.’
It was more than three weeks’ travel from Miln to Bogton, even by the fastest route. A part of Ragen had been eager for the journey, eager to escape the confines of Miln. But Ragen found he had not missed many aspects of the road. His thighs screamed, for when had he last spent an entire day in the saddle? Even at the waystations, pallets were hard and foods were chosen more for how long they would last rather than the desires of the palate.
They would have good meals and beds in Riverbridge, and Angiers, but then there would be nights on the open road before they reached the Hollow, and even more before they reached Bogton.
That second day he got one of the first sunburns of his life. It was only then he noticed how white his hands had become. Messenger Ragen’s hands and face had been tanned a deep brown, immune to the sun.
But by the third day, Ragen found his legs again. They climbed a hill for vantage, and he leaned back in the saddle, stretching as the duchy spread out before them.
‘This, I’ve missed,’ he said.
Elissa gasped at the sight. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Ragen reached out, taking her hand. ‘It’s only the beginning.’
‘They’ll be rising soon,’ Ragen said. ‘Time to go inside.’
‘Inside’ was a canvas tent the men had raised. They were south of Angiers now, on the road to the Hollow.
‘No,’ Elissa said. ‘We’re no safer in the tent than out here. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade learning wardcraft. It’s time I saw a demon.’
Ragen could see the tension in her as she paced back and forth, waiting. Her hand were curled fists at her sides. ‘It won’t be just one. Wood demons rise in numbers near the road, and it won’t take them long to find us.’
Elissa stopped pacing. She took a deep breath, scanning the roadside woods as the sun slipped below the horizon and twilight took the world.
She did not have to wait long. The accursed mist began to seep from the ground, thickening and coalescing like a sculptor slapping clay until a recognizable shape began to form.
It was a wood demon, long-limbed with brown armour, knobbed and rough like the bark of a tree. Its talons could be broken sticks on the blunt side, but Ragen knew from experience the other side was sharp and hooked, equally suited for climbing trees and disembowelling prey.
Its snout split open, revealing hundreds of yellow teeth like etching awls, but Elissa met the coreling’s eyes, and he swelled with pride. He’d known seasoned Messengers who couldn’t abide to meet a demon’s stare.
But when the demon sprang, covering the distance between them in an instant and slashing its talons at Elissa, she shrieked and Ragen’s heart skipped like a novice on his first overnight.
The blow was stopped cold by the wardnet with a boom and flare that spiderwebbed from the point of impact like a bolt of lightning.
Elissa watched as the wardnet rebounded the energy, throwing the demon off its feet. She gave a sniff, then went into the tent. The coreling, infuriated by the dismissal, hurled itself at the net again and again, but to no avail.
It went on for some time. The first demon had drawn others, and soon a dozen of them lurked nearby, testing the net in turns.
Creator only knew how, but Elissa managed to fall asleep. Ragen remembered a time when he had been able to do the same, but the memory had given him nightmares since retirement, and now he lay awake, flinching at every blow.
He drifted off a bit before dawn as the demons quieted, only to be woken a short time later by the sounds of the guards breaking camp. Every bit of him ached as he climbed back into the saddle.
They made it to the Hollow not long after, and had two nights of inns before being back on the road. They asked after Arlen – the Hollowers happy to gossip about the Deliverer – but the news was unchanged. Many believed he would return, but none had seen him in the weeks since the battle.
After the sleepless nights on the road, Ragen was tempted to stay an extra day or two, perhaps pay a call on Count Thamos, but the Tender’s words stuck in his mind.
Briar is alone in the naked night.
They pressed on.
They were nearing the fork to Bogton when a Messenger came thundering up the road. His horse was lathered with sweat, and there was a wild look in his eyes.
The man pulled up short at the sight of them, taking a long pull of his waterskin. Ragen didn’t know him. He’d been too long out of the business.
‘In the name of the Dockmasters, I need a fresh mount,’ the man said. ‘And you need to turn around.’
His tone set off alarms, but Ragen kept his voice calm. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Krasians,’ the man said. ‘They’ve taken Docktown. There’s a host of refugees fleeing this way, and no telling if the desert rats are in pursuit.’
‘Creator,’ Ragen said. ‘How far?’
The Messenger shrugged. ‘Two days. Maybe three. If the Sharum are coming this way, believe me when I say you don’t want to be here when they arrive.’
Ragen nodded, turning to Derek. ‘Give the man a fresh horse. The rest of you, turn around and head back to the Hollow. I’ll meet you there.’
‘And where are you going?’ Elissa demanded.
‘You know where I’m going,’ Ragen said. ‘Someone needs to warn the Boggers.’
‘You’re not going alone,’ Elissa said.
‘No arguments, Elissa,’ Ragen snapped. ‘I’m not letting you come.’
‘Try and stop me.’ Elissa yanked the reins, moving her horse out of reach before he could grab them. She was a skilled rider, and there was little hope of catching her if she did not allow it.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Ragen said.
‘Ay, so stop being stubborn and let’s go,’ Elissa said.
Ragen scowled, but he turned to the guards. ‘Robbert, Natan, give the Messenger your horses so he can alternate. Meet us in Bogton. The rest of you are with us.’ He kicked his horse, and they set off for the town at a gallop.
Seventhday services were just ending as they approached the Holy House in Bogton. The faithful were spilling from the chapel doors, congregating in the yard to eat and drink and enjoy the sun on the warm spring afternoon.
‘Find the Speaker and give them the news,’ Ragen told Derek as they rode up to the hitching post. ‘Last time I was in Bogton it was a woman named Marta, but that was a decade ago. Take the men with you, and keep things quiet until the Speaker has a moment to think. These people need to evacuate, but panic won’t help anyone.’
‘Me?’ Derek asked. ‘Shouldn’t you …’
‘I’m not in the Messenger’s Guild any more, Derek,’ Ragen said. ‘It’s not my place, and I have other concerns if I’m going to find Briar before the town’s overrun.’
Derek pursed his lips, but he nodded, tying his horse and signalling the men to follow as he went into the crowd in search of the Speaker.
Ragen saw Tender Heath at the chapel doors, leaning on a crutch as he shook hands and traded smiles with the exiting faithful. His belly had doubled in size since Ragen had seen him last, but he looked healthy still. His hair more dark than grey, his eyes full of life.
Those eyes widened at the sight of Ragen, and the Tender broke off from a grey couple he had been speaking to, turning to greet him. ‘Ragen!’ H
e opened his arms. ‘Thank the Creator you’ve come.’
‘How could I not?’ Ragen said after a crushing hug. He half turned, gesturing to Elissa. ‘My wife, Mother Elissa.’ He said nothing of the coming Krasians. The Tender would hear of it soon enough, and Ragen meant to be out looking for Briar by then.
Heath bowed as far as his crutch would allow. ‘You honour our tiny village with your visit, Lady.’
‘Nonsense,’ Elissa said. ‘The honour is mine.’
‘Our sod roofs and mud streets may not impress as the fabled cobble streets of Miln,’ Heath said, ‘but there are good folk here.’
‘If that were true, we wouldn’t have needed to come all this way,’ Ragen said. ‘What good folk leave a boy not yet sixteen to wander the naked night?’
‘Ignorant, frightened ones,’ Heath said. ‘I’m not defending it, but since the Krasians took Fort Rizon, the Boggers have grown distrustful of outsiders.’
‘I don’t remember them being any better before,’ Ragen noted. ‘And it’s only going to get worse.’
‘Eh?’ the Tender asked.
‘Never mind,’ Ragen said. ‘Are you positive it was Briar you saw?’
‘Creator my witness,’ Heath said, using the crutch to step out of the shade of the doorway and into the open sun. ‘He’s been stealing the Seventhday Offering off and on for years.’
‘Years?’ Ragen felt a lump of anger welling in his throat. ‘Years?! And you write to me now?’
‘Peace, Messenger,’ Heath said, holding up a hand. ‘I wasn’t going to write all the way to Miln just to tell you my Offering was going missing. You might have come all this way and discovered it was squirrels.’
Elissa laid her hand over Ragen’s and he realized he was clenching it into a fist. He relaxed, breathing deeply.
‘Forgive my husband,’ Elissa said. ‘He has thought of nothing but Briar’s safety these past weeks, and is impatient to begin the search. Please go on.’
‘There is nothing to forgive.’ Heath drew a ward in the air at Ragen. ‘Those were words of love for Briar, and will weigh as such when the Creator judges your heart.’
Ragen forced himself to be patient. He had never been religious.
‘Been trying to catch the thief for years,’ Heath went on. ‘Put bells on every door and window, slept on the altar, everything I could think of. But sooner or later I nodded off or turned my back an instant, and the next thing I knew the Offering was gone.’
Heath held up a finger in triumph. ‘But then it hit me. I put a bell inside the tray cover. I was hiding in the vestibule, and when I heard the ring I —’ he clapped his hands loudly ‘— pounced! Caught him right in the act. He was filthy, and older, but it was undoubtedly Briar Damaj.’
‘How is that possible?’ Ragen asked. ‘A boy of six surviving a decade in the naked night?’
Heath spread his hands. ‘I prayed for a miracle. Perhaps the Creator had one to spare for the poor boy.’
‘I seen him, too.’ The three of them turned to see the speaker. She was perhaps sixteen summers, still a girl by Milnese terms, but a woman grown out in the hamlets. She was familiar, but Ragen couldn’t place her.
‘What do you mean, child?’ Heath asked. ‘Seen whom?’
‘Briar Damaj,’ the girl said.
‘Ay, Tami!’ a voice called. Ragen looked up at her family and realized why she looked familiar. Masen Bales still had a gap in his teeth where Ragen had knocked one out.
‘Seen him watching me sometimes,’ Tami said, ‘from across the yard in the hogroot patch.’
Masen stormed over. ‘Ay, girl. What the Core you think you’re doin’, interrupting the Tender when he’s with someone?’
‘A moment please, Masen,’ Heath said. ‘Tami was telling us she’s seen Briar Damaj.’
‘Night!’ Masen cried. Tami wilted at the glare he threw her. ‘Don’t you go spouting that Mudboy nonsense again, girl.’
‘You saw him, too,’ Tami dared to argue.
Masen shook his head. ‘Saw some boy trying to peek as you bent to milk the cow, but he ran off before I got a look at him. Coulda been any of a dozen living boys in this stinking town. Sure as the sun wasn’t some ripping ghost.’
He looked back at the Tender apologetically. ‘Girl told all her friends about the ghost, and now half the kids in town are telling fire stories about having seen the Mudboy.’
‘What about the other time?’ Tami demanded of her father.
Masen rolled his eyes. ‘Here’s where she goes completely peat-brained.’
‘Why is that?’ Heath asked.
Tami looked at her feet. ‘Seen him from the window at night, sneaking a cup of milk from Maybell.’
‘Half-demon, he’d have to be,’ Masen said, ‘walking about in the naked night. Either you seen a ghost, or you seen nothing at all.’
Heath coughed. ‘Yes, well. Thank you Tami. Good day to you, Masen.’ Masen grunted at the dismissal, grabbing Tami’s arm and turning to go.
‘Just one thing,’ Ragen asked, pulling them up short. ‘When you saw this boy, which direction were you facing?’
‘East,’ Tami said. ‘Towards the dump road.’
Ragen nodded, producing a gold sun. The coins were common enough among Miln’s upper classes, but in a backwater hamlet like Bogton, half the folk had never even seen gold, and the other half hadn’t been allowed to touch. Perhaps it would help as they fled the coming army.
‘For your assistance,’ Ragen said, handing Tami the coin. She and Masen stumbled away, staring at the coin, dumbstruck.
6
Cories
333 AR Autumn
‘This would explain how he kept from being cored,’ Elissa said as they approached the Bogton Dump. She waved a hand in front of her nose. ‘Demons can’t stand the reek.’
While the Boggers were still gathered in the Holy House yard, Ragen and Elissa had asked the local children for tales of Mudboy, paying a silver star for each new one. Most of them were impossible nonsense, but two or three seemed plausible, and on further questioning, Ragen felt sure they had seen … something. Something that all credible accounts had coming from the direction of the town dump.
‘Reek doesn’t cover it by half,’ Ragen said, slapping a mosquito on the back of his neck. ‘Bog air reeks all by itself. This? This is a work of art. Swamp stink laced with rotting carcass and …’
‘Something I’d find in a baby’s nappy after a night of sick,’ Elissa said.
Ragen heaved, but managed to swallow it back down. ‘All the more reason we find Briar and get as far from this place as possible. If he’s here at all, and this isn’t some tampweed tale.’
‘You don’t believe it?’ Elissa asked.
‘Heath is famous for drinking his own ale,’ Ragen said. ‘You can see it in the broken veins of his face. And it was Seventhday, no less. No hangover like a Tender on Firstday morn, as the saying goes.’
‘The girl swore she saw him,’ Elissa said.
Ragen nodded. ‘Ay. But it’s not odd for a child who’s lost a friend to think they see them when they don’t.’
‘Night, I do that now,’ Elissa said. ‘Could’ve sworn I saw Cob on the street in Angiers last week.’
They circled the dump, riding around the junk piles and garbage mounds, getting the lay of the land.
There was vegetation everywhere. Mostly weeds, but also a surprising number of useful plants. At first glance it appeared chaotic, but by the third pass, Ragen began to think it no coincidence. He slipped from the saddle, inspecting the plants.
Elissa followed, squatting to part the fronds so the stalks were visible down to the damp soil. ‘They’ve been cultivated.’
Ragen stood. ‘Ay, but that doesn’t mean Briar did it. Could have been the refuse collectors or their families. Soil’s good here, if you can stand the smell.’ They returned to their saddles, circling the area again.
There was a cliff with worn wagon ruts leading to its edge, the place where the
rot waste was dumped. The rest of the area was filled with more solid trash, piled into small mountains by generations of waste. At the edge of this was the bog, stretching on for miles into thick and forbidding fog.
‘We’ve never really discussed what we’re going to do if we find him,’ Elissa said.
‘Do you have to ask? We’ll take him back to Miln with us.’ Ragen smiled. ‘It wouldn’t be the first time I brought home a stray.’
‘What if he doesn’t remember you?’ Elissa asked. ‘What if he doesn’t want to go?’
Ragen shrugged. ‘Then we drag him for his own good. Can’t spend his life living like an animal in the bog.’
There was a rustle in the weeds off to one side, and both of them pulled up short, staring in the direction of the sound. A hogroot patch. The stalks still shook slightly, though there was no breeze.
‘Briar?’ Ragen called loudly. ‘That you, boy?’
There was no response. The stalks settled back in place. But something didn’t feel right, and Ragen nudged his horse into the weeds for a closer look.
He was beginning to think he’d imagined the whole thing when there was an explosion of movement as something burst from concealment, a dark blur passing so close his mare gave a great whinny and stood on her hindquarters, kicking the air. By the time Ragen managed to calm her, whatever it was had fled.
‘You see that?’ Ragen demanded, leaping the horse out of the weed patch. Without waiting for an answer he kicked and rode up one of the more solid mounds of trash, standing in his stirrups for a better vantage.
Elissa was beside him in a moment. ‘I only caught a glimpse, but it was too big to be a rabbit, too small for a nightwolf. Saw it dart across the road into the weeds there.’ She pointed.
Ragen could see where the weeds were trampled, his tracker’s eye following the trail as easily as he found markers on an overgrown Messenger Way. Whatever it was had darted from cover to cover, heading straight for the bog. The fog was still stirring where the thing had disappeared.