Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,199

tuck her shoulder as she hit, the wind knocked out of her as she tumbled, sand hissing, one boot flying free, finally rolling to a cursing, breathless rest some forty feet from the ruins of her ride.

She tried to rise, ears ringing, head swimming. Stumbling to her knees as a few more quarrels sailed out of the dust, watching as Remus’s wagon and Lord Cassius and the Ministry and her revenge all galloped further and further away.

She collapsed to all fours. Retched. Her ribs felt cracked, her mouth full of dust and bile. Thumping down on her belly, clawing at the sand.

Unable, at the last, even to crawl.

She’d got so close.

So close.

But again, at the final hurdle, she’d stumbled. And she’d fallen.

“Story of my life,” she muttered.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

She sighed.

And darkness fell.

1. It occurs to me there is no word to describe the noise a camel makes. Dogs bark, lions roar, drunkards mumble.

What the ’byss do camels do?

CHAPTER 35

KARMA

Nudge.

Mia groaned, not daring to open her eyes.

Her head was ringing, ribs aching, every breath a battle.

She’d no idea how long she’d lain there.

Minutes?

Hours?

She could feel the suns above her, burning just outside her eyelids.

She knew what awaited her if she dared open them.

Failure.

Her wagon wrecked. Her camels slaughtered. The Quiet Mountain lay a turn back to the east, but hurt as she was, she’d be lucky to make it in two—presuming she didn’t get eaten by kraken or dust wraiths in the meantime. Getting to Last Hope on foot from here was impossible, but sti—

Nudge.

Something soft and wet and whiskered. Smearing her lips with thick and warm. A tiny part of her brain screamed very loudly the Something was quite big and very obviously alive and was now snuffling at her, potentially as a prelude to eating her.

Her eyes fluttered open, pain waiting just beyond. She hissed, squinting up into a pair of wide nostrils, nudging her again and smearing her lips with—O, joy of joys—more snot. An enormous pink tongue smacked at huge yellow teeth and Mia came fully awake, scrambling away in a cloud of fine red dust until she realized exactly what had been trying to eat her.

It was a horse.

Black and glossy and twenty hands high.

A horse she’d been pleased to see the back end of months ago, truth be told.

But still, she found herself grinning. Dragging herself to her feet and wobbling to his side, running her hand across his flank as he made a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

She put her arms around his neck.

Kissed his cheek.

“Hello, Bastard,” she said.

CHAPTER 36

SUNSSET

Fat Daniio was beginning to think the Everseeing hated him.

When Lem had walked into the Old Imperial and declared a laden wagon train was trundling into Last Hope, Daniio figured mebbe those idiot Kephians had returned from their fool quest without getting et. But then Scupps had wandered in, scratching his bollocks and blinking the dust from his eyes, declaring there were too many of the buggers to be them Kephians. In Scupps’s learned opinion, they looked more like soldier boys. Waddling out into Last Hope’s thoroughfare with the lads in tow, Fat Daniio peered the battered wagon train up and down.

“Soldiers,” Scupps had declared. “Soldiers or I’m a two-beggar whoreson.”

Lem scowled. “Kephians, I’m telling yers.”

“Yer both wrong.” A grin had split Daniio’s chubby face. “They’re customers.”

The garrison house wasn’t near big enough to house seventy bodies, and sure enough, that marrowborn wanker Garibaldi (who was still heartbroke about his bloody horse getting pinched—you’d think it were his bride the way he went on about it) mooched up to the Old Imperial about an hour after the train hit Last Hope, booked every spare room in the place, quick as spit. It was at least a week ’til Wolfeater would be back to ship the newcomers to civilization, and Daniio began dreaming about the small fortune he’d make in the meantime.

Until he found out the bastards had no money, of course.

Not a pair of rusty beggars to rub between them.

He’d marched right over to the garrison house, pounded on the door and demanded to speak to the tosser in charge. A scarred man the size of a small pub had rumbled slowly into view, and declared himself the justicus—justicus, mind you—of the entire Luminatii Legion. He told Daniio that the Old Imperial and all provisions therein were being requisitioned for the “safety and security of the Itreyan Republic.” Centurion Horse-Lover had given Daniio a smug smile, some little blond piece who looked young