Talen walked in silence for a few more yards waiting for more. When Da didn’t respond, he decided to take another tack. “So what are all these facts you were going to bestow on me?”
“What?” asked Da in mock amazement. “An idiot like myself attempt to explain anything to you? I wouldn’t presume.”
“Oh, come,” said Talen.
“You’ll get your facts,” said Da. “Both of you. Just a little patience is all you need.”
“We shall bind her first,” said the Mother. Hunger approached the woman with a weave the Mother had directed him to make, but the woman scrambled back, and before he could reach her, she rose and, with what only could have been multiplied might and speed, ran headlong at the wall of the chamber, crashing into a rock.
The woman fell to the floor.
“You careless fool,” the Mother said. She delivered a blow of pain that sent Hunger to his knees.
The Mother turned back to the woman. She bent to her and began singing the odd music of hers, pressing herself into the world of men. Soon the scent of her clean magic filled the room. But the woman did not move.
“She’s dead,” said Hunger.
“Quiet,” commanded the Mother.
He didn’t deserve the reproach. He hadn’t been careless. It was the woman, the wily woman. How could Hunger know she would try to break her head like a squash? He did not know how the woman could survive such a blow. But then she spoke.
“No,” she said.
“It is time,” said the Mother.
“Nightmare,” said the woman, “depart.” She was still unsteady from her injury and slurred her words.
“Your son,” said the Mother. “Where has he gone?”
“Dead,” she said.
“No,” said the Mother. “I can feel him through the weave. He is not dead.”
“He is dead,” said the woman. “My son is mingled with a stork.”
The Mother paused, agitated. “Do not try to deceive me.” Then she did something and the woman groaned. “Where is the one with the weave?”
“Why do you torment my dreams?” asked the woman.
“The weave.”
The woman was silent again. But again the Mother did something that pained the woman.
“With horse,” she said.
“Where did he go with the horse?”
“You can’t have him. You will not sacrifice him for his Fire.”
“I would never do such a thing,” said the Mother. “He is precious to me.”
The woman hesitated. “They’re looking for him.”
“I will protect him. Where is he?”
The woman paused, and the Mother asked again.
“To horse,” said the woman weakly.
It made no sense. The woman was babbling. She was not going to live. Not here in the dark, not with that injury.
“Who is horse?” asked the Mother, but the woman closed her eyes. The Mother tried to bring her back with pain, but the woman fell limp in her hands.
“She’s dead,” said Hunger.
“Her heart is still beating,” said the Mother. “But what’s this?” She sniffed. The Mother put a finger to the woman’s bloody head and licked the blood off. “Sickness.” She savored the blood. “And something else. She’d been eating something. But I’ve tasted worse. I can fix this one. She’s going to live and lead us to others.”
Hunger had wanted to watch the Mother as she attempted to heal the woman, but he’d caught a whiff of magic and she’d sent him out into the night to track it. It was odd how often he’d smelled the magic of late. Perhaps the woman was bringing the Sleth out of hiding, drawing the nest to her. Or perhaps he was simply maturing in his powers. One thing was for sure, he could smell a male in this magic.
Hunger thought of the two men who had attacked him in the tower only a few hours ago. He knew the Mokaddian. It was Argoth, a captain of the Shoka. Perhaps this was his stink.
He followed the scent for miles, up onto the plains, to a farmstead past all settled parts. He paused in the woods on the edge of a field.
A bat darted above him and flittered out over fields of ripe grain shining pale and blue in the moonlight. On the far side of the fields stood a simple cabin with light shining from its small windows.
Hunger took in a great breath of the scent. He knew he shouldn’t do that because it only enflamed his appetite. And the Mother had wanted this human live. But he couldn’t help himself.
He walked along the tree line toward it and noticed a number of new stumps. Somebody had been busy