The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,136

was growing up, there’d been someone in the city who snatched kids around her little sister’s age. A few of the girls were found mutilated. More simply disappeared. The snatchings stopped after that horrible summer, but no one who lived through that time could ever hear about a missing child without remembering the horror and fear.

Now Teia was going to be the person who snatched and mutilated a child, like a bloodthirsty ghost in the night.

“Eight to ten years old,” Sharp said. He pushed her out the door. “After you read the folio, you’ll know why.”

Chapter 36

“I suppose it should sound ungrateful to say that I was rather looking forward to being dead,” Orholam said.

“You didn’t look like you were looking forward to it out there,” Gavin said, cracking one eye open. His shade had moved away from him, and it was miserably hot on the beach. He could only imagine he was already on his way to a fierce sunburn. And the damned sand fleas . . .

“Oh, I’m terrified of dying. Being dead, though? That’s the thing.” Orholam was sitting cross-legged on the sand, heedless of the bugs, dirt, and his own nudity.

Gavin stood up slowly, his body afire with aches. He still had the damned gun-sword strapped to him. Neither blade nor straps had made for easy rest. He began brushing off the worst of the dirt and bugs. “You’re right,” he said.

“I am?” Orholam asked.

“You do sound ungrateful.”

“I meant to be the opposite,” Orholam said. “Thank you. I was wrong about you.”

“Well, I only did it for one reason,” Gavin said. He gestured for them to move off the beach.

Orholam stood and then started walking. “And what’s that?”

“Lots of men claim Orholam saved them from drowning,” Gavin said.

“But what man can say he saved Orholam from drowning?” Orholam said. He chuckled.

Gavin grunted, irritated the man had taken his punchline.

“Guess we should both be grateful there’s an island here at all, huh? If the story had been true about the isle sinking when the reef rose, we’d be shark supper.”

“There’s looking on the bright side!” the old man said.

Gavin grunted again. “How bad’s my back? It cut me.”

“Not terrible. Need to wash it, though, if you want to live.”

Gavin examined the rest of himself for injuries. Arm had rope burn, but not bad. His head ached, tongue was dry, left leg hurt, but that was just a lightly pulled muscle. A few calluses torn off his hands. They’d gotten soft in his prison.

His left eye pit hurt like hell. The patch had stayed on, but saltwater had gotten into the hole, and sand was all around it. If he got sand into the empty orb of his eyeball, he’d be in such agony he wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything.

Fantastic. Washing that was going to be just great.

Assuming, of course, they could find clean water at all.

“I already searched everything that washed up,” Orholam said. “Only a little luck.” He rapped on a little barrel small enough to fit under his arm.

“Black powder? That’s enormous luck! With this musket, we can hunt!”

“Not powder. Salt fish,” Orholam said apologetically. “Keep us for a few days if we can find some water. But nothing else. Maybe more’ll wash in later, but I’d say we head inland and see if we can find the pilgrims’ waystations. Whether they’ll hold anything useful after a few centuries is another question, though.”

“You couldn’t find anything good?” Gavin asked, looking out to the lagoon. Fish was great, but water was more important, and tools to hunt with would’ve been the best.

He’d been so concerned about the beach and his own injuries that this was the first time he’d looked around. They were inside the great circular wall of mist that made the White Mist Tower; it was utterly clear here, with blue sky high above. The island was large enough that it would have streams if not a river, but that wall, maybe five hundred paces high, made Gavin claustrophobic. The outside world didn’t exist here.

Halfway through alien cloud, part of their ship was visible perched on the reef crest. The stern, waist, and sails were completely gone, battered into flotsam, spread throughout the lagoon with the floating dead. Only the forecastle survived, with The Compelling Argument pointed at a jaunty angle into the sky. There appeared to be a figure moving there, but it might have been Gavin’s imagination.

“Is that . . . ?” he asked.

“Uluch Assan. Yes,” Orholam said.

Gunner. “Hard man to