Assassin’s Fate. Робин Хобб
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and pretended to write and draw. The pressure eased. I tilted my head up and looked at distant stars. No clouds. It was going to be very cold tonight. I struggled to wrap my shawl more warmly around me, to no avail.
A third day passed, and a fourth. Dwalia paced and muttered and studied her documents. My bruises began to fade but I still ached all over. The swelling over my eye had gone down but one of my back teeth still felt loose. The split flesh on my cheekbone was mostly closed over now. None of them cared.
‘Take me back through the stone,’ Reppin demanded on the fourth evening. ‘Perhaps they could save me, if we returned to the Six Duchies. At least I could die in a bed instead of in the dirt.’
‘Failures die in the dirt,’ Dwalia said without emotion.
Reppin made a stricken sound and lay down on her side. She drew her legs up, treasuring her infected arm close. My disgust with Dwalia equalled my hatred in that moment.
Alaria spoke quietly into the gathering dimness. ‘We can’t stay here. Where will we go? Why can’t we follow this old road? It must lead somewhere. Perhaps it goes to a town, with warm shelter and food.’
Dwalia had been sitting by the fire, holding her hands out to the warmth. She suddenly folded her arms across her chest and glared at Alaria. ‘Are you asking questions?’
Alaria looked down. ‘I was just wondering.’ She dared to lift her head. ‘Were not we luriks meant to advise you? Were not we sent to help you find the true Path and make correct decisions?’ Her voice rose in pitch. ‘Coultrie and Capra did not wish you to go. They only allowed this because Beloved had escaped! We were to hunt him down and kill him! And then, perhaps, capture the Unexpected Son, if Beloved had led you to him. But you let the Farseer take Beloved away, so we could ransack his home. All that killing! Now we are lost in a forest, with the useless girl you stole. Does she dream? No! What good is she? I wonder why you have brought us all here, to die! I wonder if the rumour was true, that Beloved did not “escape” but was released by you and Symphe?’
Dwalia shot to her feet and stood over Alaria. ‘I am a lingstra! You are a young and stupid lurik. If you want to wonder anything, wonder why the fire is dying. Go get more wood.’
Alaria hesitated as if she would argue. Then she rose stiffly and walked reluctantly into the gathering gloom under the great trees. Over the last few days, we had gathered all the close dry wood. She would have to range deeper into the forest to find more. I wondered if she would come back. Twice Wolf Father had noted a faint but foul smell on the air. Bear, he had cautioned me. I had been frightened.
He does not want to approach so many humans near a fire. But if he changes his mind, let the others shriek and run. You cannot run fast or far. So lie very still and do not make a sound. It may be he will chase after the others.
But if he does not?
Lie still and don’t make a sound.
I had not been reassured, and I hoped that Alaria would return and bring an armful of firewood with her.
‘You,’ Dwalia said suddenly. ‘Go with her.’
‘You already tied my feet for the night,’ I pointed out to her. ‘And my hands.’ I tried to sound sullen. If she cut me free to go for wood, I was almost certain I could slip away in the gloom.
‘Not you. I’m not having you run off in the dark, to die in the forest. Reppin. Fetch wood.’
Reppin looked incredulous. ‘I can barely move this arm. I can’t fetch wood.’
Dwalia stared at her. I thought she might order her to her feet. Instead, she just pursed her mouth. ‘Useless,’ she said coldly, and then added, ‘Vindeliar, fetch wood.’
Vindeliar rose slowly. He kept his eyes cast down, but I could read his resentment in the set of his shoulders as he wandered off in the same direction that Alaria had gone.
Dwalia went back to doing what she did every evening: studying the little scroll and the tattered paper. Earlier, she had spent hours circling the pillars at the edge of the plaza, her eyes going from the parchment she’d found to the runes and back again. Some of those markings I had seen in my father’s papers in his study. Would she attempt another passage through the Skill-pillars? She had also made brief forays on the road in both directions, and had returned shaking her head and irritable. I could not decide which I feared more, that she would drag us into the Skill-pillar or starve us here.
Across the plaza, Kerf was engaged in a boot-stamping dance. If I allowed myself, I could hear the music and see the Elderlings who danced all about him. Alaria returned with some frozen branches broken green from trees. They might burn but would give little warmth. Vindeliar came behind her, carrying a broken piece of rotted log, more moss than wood. As they approached the fire, Kerf danced a foot-stamping jig around them. ‘Go away!’ Alaria shouted at him, but he only grinned as he spun away to rejoin the festivities of the spectral Elderlings.
I did not like camping in the open ground of the plaza, but Dwalia thought the forest floor was ‘dirty’. But dirt was much better than the smooth black stone of the plaza that gibbered and whispered to me constantly. Awake, I could keep my walls tight, though I was weary of the effort that took. But at night, when exhaustion finally claimed me, I was vulnerable to the voices stored in the stone. Their marketplace came alive with smoking meat over fragrant fires, and jugglers flipping sparkling gems and one pale songster who seemed to see me. ‘Be strong, be strong, go where you belong!’ she sang to me. But her words more frightened than comforted me. In her eyes, I saw her belief that I would do a terrible and wonderful thing. A thing only I could do? The Chalcedean abruptly dropped into place beside me. I jumped. My walls were so tight I had not been aware of his approach. Danger! Wolf Father cautioned me. Kerf folded his legs and gave me a jaunty grin. ‘A fine night for the festival!’ he said to me. ‘Have you tried the smoked goat? Excellent!’ He pointed across the plaza at the darkening forest. ‘From the vendor with the purple awning.’
Madness made him such a congenial fellow. His mention of food made my stomach clench. ‘Excellent,’ I said quietly, and looked aside, thinking that agreeing might be the swiftest way to end the conversation.
He nodded gravely and walked his haunches a bit closer to the fire, holding his grimy hands toward the warmth. Even mad, he’d had more sense than Reppin. A rag torn from his shirt bandaged the finger I’d bitten. He opened the sturdy leather pouch at his belt and rummaged in it. ‘Here,’ he said and thrust a stick at me. I lifted my bound hands to fend it off and he pushed it into my fingers. I suddenly smelled meat. Jerky. The rush of hunger and the flood of saliva in my mouth shocked me. My hands shook as I lifted it to my mouth. It was dry and so hard I could not bite off a piece. I chewed and sucked on it, and found myself breathing hard as I tried to gnaw off a piece I could swallow.
‘I know what you did.’
I clutched the stick of jerky harder, fearful he would take it from me. I said nothing. Dwalia had lifted her gaze from her papers and was scowling at us. I knew she would not try to take the jerky from me, for fear of my teeth.
He patted my shoulder. ‘You tried to save me. If I had let go when you bit me, I would have stayed there with beautiful Shun. I understand that now. You wanted me to stay behind, to protect her and win her.’
I kept chewing the jerky. To get as much of it as I could into my belly before anyone could take it from me. Belatedly I nodded at him. Let him believe whatever he wished if it meant he would give me food.
He sighed as he gazed at the night. ‘I think we are in the realm of death. It is very different to what I expected. I feel cold and pain but I hear music and see beauty. I do not know if I am punished or rewarded. I do not know why I am still with these people instead of judged by my ancestors.’ He gave Dwalia a gloomy look. ‘These folks are darker than death. Perhaps that is why we are lodged here, halfway down death’s throat.’
I nodded again. I’d managed to tear a bit of the meat free and was chewing it to shreds. I had never so greatly anticipated