The Knave of Souls - Fantasy - Sequel to The Jack of Souls

Chapter 13

Put no trust in gods or spirits for they are wild and loose as sand in a river.

—From Sayings of the Wandering Fathers

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ON BROKEN HOPE

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Light moved on the other side of Harric's eyelids. He heard the squeak of a lantern handle in the stable below his bed in the loft. Someone knocked at the foot of the ladder to the loft.

"Heave up!" Willard's bull-throated bellow shattered the pre-dawn silence. "Heave up, I say! Day approaches!"

Caris stirred beside Harric. "We're up."

Harric groaned. Exhaustion weighed heavy on his body, driving him deeper in the straw.

"Girl! Grab a pair of axes from the tower and meet me at Kogan's camp in a quarter of an hour. I saw a grove of ash where we can cut lances. Boy, load and saddle the horses, and when you're done, bring one down to haul the lances back up. I'm headed down now."

"Understood." Caris's voice, too near, beat Harric back from the gates of slumber. "Is Brolli back? What news of the north passes?"

"Didn't learn a thing," Willard growled. "Too damned foggy. So we need to move fast. I want to be on our way down the opposite ridge before mid-morning."

Harric felt Caris rise in the straw beside him. "Let's go," she said. "We need to hit the trail."

Cold air chilled Harric's cheek. He moved a fold of blanket over his eyes. Let the north pass swarm with enemies. Sleep was a warm pool in which he would vanish.

Rude hands seized him beneath the arms and dragged him upright in the scratchy straw. "We have to go, Harric. Now." She jabbed a thumb in his ribs.

"Hey! Stop it." He opened his eyes too late to see another jab. "Ow!"

Caris hauled him to his feet, bumping his head on the roof. With a series of well-aimed thumbs to ribs she herded him barefoot to the ladder. He tried begging. He tried cursing. He tried whining. Nothing worked. She kept jabbing. A humorless, horse-touched intensity fortified her concentration. He almost toppled from the loft in his effort to escape her cruel jabs. Once he got his feet on the ladder, he retreated swiftly down the ladder to stand on the plank floor of the stable fully awake and shivering.

"My boots?" He tried to put as much accusation in his tone as he could.

His boots hit the ground beside him. He sighed, and pulled them on.

"If I come out of the tower and you've gone back to sleep. I'll dump water on you."

"I'm up. You win."

"You're welcome."

The air felt damp and cold. Outside the stable doors, a thick fog stirred in an early breeze. He shivered at the memory of his mother's murderous fogs. This one, thankfully, showed no signs of voices and grasping hands. He and Fink had put that trouble to rest. Nevertheless, he jumped when Willard emerged from it like some black-armored specter in the dark.

Willard glared at Harric, and Harric recognized instantly the furious intensity he'd seen the moments after Willard took the Blood on the previous day. Harric took a half step backward, but the knight ignored him. Willard had taken to chewing splinters of wood in place of his longed-for rolls of ragleaf. He had one in now, about the size of a usual roll, which he removed to spit a fragment into the straw.