mind what a hero and his reward might buy. He was going to surprise everyone. Nobody seemed to think he would amount to much of anything. But what would they say when he hog-tied the hatchlings and carted them into Whitecliff?
He waited and watched and waited and began to tire of waiting. A pressure began to build in his bowels. He stood, tried various positions to hold it, but soon he realized that if he didn’t get to the privy immediately, he was going to soil his pants.
Lords and lice, he thought. There was an old chamber pot in the back room, but he couldn’t imagine the ribbing he’d get from Ke when he found out he’d been scared to go out. Besides, there was nothing in the yard.
He nudged Nettle, but Nettle only rolled over to his other side. Talen didn’t want to go outside. While the moon cast enough light to see, the woods were dark. But he could not wait. He opened the door, scanned the yard and shadows. Truly, nothing was there, so he slipped out the door with his bow and a clutch of arrows and ran to the privy.
As he went about his business, he began to think of the story of the Sleth woman cutting people up and curing them like hog meat.
The hackles rose on the back of Talen’s neck. Here he was, foolish enough to go out in the middle of the night when everyone was sleeping. It was possible the hatchlings had seen him go in and were waiting in the dark shadow of the house to steal his Fire.
It was a stupid idea. But he couldn’t shake it.
But he had his bow. Besides, they hadn’t attacked him earlier. Of course, that was during the day. It might be that at such times their power was on the wane.
Talen finished his business but then decided to wait and listen and peer through a knothole about a foot from the bottom of the door. He spent what seemed at least half an hour at it. He held his breath and closed his eyes to hear better, but there was nothing there.
He could stay the whole night in the privy if he had to. But then he thought of Ke. He’d laugh until he cried, and that thought put Talen on his feet. He wasn’t going to give Ke or Da that satisfaction.
Talen reached for the door and heard the creak of the well crank.
He paused, and held his breath. Surely, it was a floorboard underneath him.
But he heard it again. Talen crouched at the knothole again and saw two figures at the well. The larger one was cranking the bucket up ever so slowly. It was a girl or young woman about his size. He could see her braid. The smaller one was a boy. He just stood there holding what looked like a goat’s bladder.
Talen watched the girl bring up the bucket and fill the goat’s bladder. When they had plugged up the mouth of it, the girl turned toward the privy and began walking. The boy followed her without a word. And then he reached out, flailed a bit, and grabbed the back of her tunic.
Blind. He was blind.
One part of him felt the satisfaction of being right. The other shrunk in dread. The hatchlings were here.
There was no way Talen could get to the house now. If he were a coward, he might lift some of the loose boards off the seat and jump down into the cesspit. But they would hear him prying the boards. They would know to look down there. After all, it wasn’t so uncommon for people to string a rope from underneath the privy bench to hang their valuables above the cess below. He thought of how Nettle and the others would talk about how he’d died while crapping, his pants down, shivering on the stink throne with fright, and the image of it snapped him out of his fear.
What was he thinking? This was his opportunity. Talen wouldn’t be able to trap the hatchlings and take them in alive. So what? He had his bow. He had four arrows. Da had taught him well.
He would take them now, despite the fact that he couldn’t hear anything but his heart banging in his ears.
He didn’t dare miss. He’d have one shot. If it flew wide of the mark, they’d be on him. But if he made the first count, they’d hesitate just long