Barg brought his blade down in a cut that would have cleaved a man from collarbone to belly.
But the creature simply grabbed the blade in midswing, reached out with its free, rough hand, and took Barg by the face.
Barg struggled in its stony grasp. And then he was slipping, twisting, falling into another place entirely.
Miles away, Sugar crouched in the moon shadows at the edge of the forest and looked across a river at the farmstead of Hogan the Koramite. The man she knew as Horse.
“Is the water deep?” whispered Legs.
“I don’t know,” said Sugar.
“Do you think he will help?”
“This is where Mother sent us,” said Sugar. But in her heart she knew the chances of him helping them were slim. If Horse harbored them, he put his whole family at risk. But if he delivered them to the hunt, he, even as a Koramite, would earn a fortune.
“I think I’m wicked,” said Legs.
“You’re not wicked,” said Sugar.
“I should have listened to the wisterwife.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sometimes, when I held the charm, she would call to me like I was lost.”
Sugar looked at her brother. She’d never heard of such a thing. “She called to you?”
“In my mind. I could see her. She was beautiful. And sometimes I could see something else with her. Something made of earth, dark and wild and . . .”
Sugar waited while Legs found the words.
“Something in her voice,” he said, “it was horrible and wonderful. Every time I heard her, fear stabbed me because I didn’t want someone to think I was like old Chance. I didn’t want to be mad and taken to the altars for hearing voices in my head. And so I never answered. She said that the fullness of time had come. She promised to make me whole. Promised all sorts of things. Lunatic promises. But I was too scared. I think she wanted to help.”
Sugar thought about the wisterwife charm. All this time they’d thought it was a blessing, a gift. It was an annual ritual for most people to fashion a Creator’s wreath and hang it above their door to draw the blessings of the wisterwives. It was fashioned with rock and leaf, feathers and bones. Many set out a gift of food or cast it upon the waters. But Regret had his servants as well. So who knew what this charm really was? She thought of Mother and her horrible speed, her terrible secrets. That charm could be anything. “You think it was real?”
“I don’t know what to think.” No sound escaped him, but his eyes began to brim with tears, and he ducked his head the way he always did when he was in pain.
Sugar wanted to cry with him, wanted to feel overwhelming grief. But she was empty, as desolate as rock. And that pained her as much as anything else. What kind of daughter was it that had no tears for the butchering of her parents? What kind of daughter was it that ran? She had a knife. She knew how to use it.
“Da always said you were an uncanny judge of character,” said Sugar. “If your heart tells you to be afraid, then let’s trust it. Da always did.”
Legs leaned into her, and she took him into an embrace, putting his face in her neck and stroking his hair.
Things to act and things to be acted upon. She had a knife. Lords, she’d had at least six, for there were a number in the kitchen. She could have done something. She could have sent Legs to the pheasant house, gone around back herself, and surprised that line of bowmen. She could have distracted a whole group of men. She might have tipped the battle.
Why? Why had she run?
And if she hadn’t run, if, beyond hope, she’d tipped the battle, what then? She’d seen Mother. Seen her horrible power.
Legs gently pulled away. “Will we talk to Horse?”
They had no tools to survive in the wild. Besides, an army of hunters would be combing the outer woods, expecting them to run there. If Horse helped them, and that was a desperate if, then maybe they might be able to survive until all but the most patient hunters gave up dreams of a bounty and went back to their normal labors. If she and Legs survived that long, that’s when they would escape.
“I don’t know,” said Sugar. “Let’s just take this one step at a