Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,24

great eyes rolling as it flipped over and over, dragging its bulk back below the sand, howling like a dog who’s just returned home from a hard turn’s work to find another hound in his kennel, smoking his cigarillos and in bed with his wife.

Mia dragged herself to her feet, sand churning as the kraken burrowed away. Flipping the sweat-soaked bangs from her eyes, she grinned like a madwoman. Tric stood slack-jawed, bloody scimitar dangling from his hand, face caked in dust.

“What was that?” he breathed.

“Well, technically they’re not cephalopods—”

“I mean what did you throw in its mouth?”

Mia shrugged. “A jar of Fat Daniio’s widowmaker.”

Tric blinked. Several times.

“… You just thrashed a horror of the Whisperwastes with a jar of chili powder?”

Mia nodded. “Shame, really. It’s good stuff. I only stole the one jar.”

A moment of incredulous silence rang across the wastes, filled with the off-key song of maddening winds. And then the boy began laughing, a dimpled, bone-white grin gleaming in a filthy face. Wiping at his eyes, he flicked a sluice of dark blood from his blade and wandered off to fetch Flowers. Mia turned to her stolen stallion, pulling himself up from the sands, bloodied at his throat and forelegs. She spoke in calming tones, tongue caked in dust, hoping to still him.

“You all in one piece, boy?”

Mia approached slow, hand outstretched. The beast was shaken, but with a few turns’ rest at their lookout, he’d be mending, and hopefully more kindly disposed to her now she’d saved his life. Mia smoothed his flanks with steady hands, reached into the saddle bags for her—

“Ow, fuck!”

Mia shrieked as the stallion bit her arm, hard enough to leave a bloody bruise. The horse threw back his head with what sounded an awful lot like snickering.7 And tossing his mane, he began a limping canter back toward Last Hope, bloody hoofprints in his wake.

“Wait!” Mia cried. “Wait!”

“He really doesn’t like you,” Tric said.

“My thanks, Don Tric. When you’re done singing your Ode to the Obvious, perhaps you’ll do me the honor of riding down the horse escaping with all my bloody gear on his back?”

Tric grinned, vaulted onto Flowers’s saddle, and galloped off in pursuit. Mia clutched her bruised arm, listening to the faint laughter of a cat who was not a cat echoing on the wind.

She spat into the dust, eyes on the fleeing stallion.

“Bastard…,” she hissed.

Tric returned a half-hour later, a limping Bastard in tow. Reunited, he and Mia trekked overland to the thin spur of rock that’d serve as their lookout. They were on constant watch for disturbances beneath the sand, Tric sniffing the air like a bloodhound, but no more horrors reared any tentacles (or other appendages) to impede progress.

Bastard and Flowers were allowed to graze on the thin grass surrounding the spire—Flowers partook happily, while Bastard fixed Mia in the withering stare of a beast used to fresh oats for every meal, refusing to eat a thing. He tried to bite Mia twice more as she tied him up, so the girl made a show of patting Flowers (despite not really liking him much either) and gifted the chestnut with some sugar cubes from her saddlebags. The stolen stallion’s only gift was the rudest hand-gesture Mia could conjure.8

“Why do you call your horse Flowers?” Mia asked, as she and Tric prepared to climb.

“… What’s wrong with Flowers?”

“Well, most men name their horses something a little more … manly, is all.”

“Legend or Prince or suchlike.”

“I met a horse named Thunderhoof once.” She raised a hand. “Light’s truth.”

“Seems a silly thing to me,” the boy sniffed. “Giving out that kind of knowing for free.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you call your horse Legend, you’re letting people know you think you’re some hero in a storybook. You call your horse Thunderhoof … Daughters, you might as well hang a sign about your neck saying, ‘I have a peanut for a penis.’”

Mia smiled. “I’ll take your word on that.”

“It’s like these fellows who name their swords ‘Skullbane’ or ‘Souldrinker’ or somesuch.” Tric tied his saltlocks into a matted knot atop his head. “Tossers, all.”

“If I were going to name my blade,” Mia said thoughtfully, “I’d call it ‘Fluffy.’”

Tric snorted with laughter. “Fluffy?”

“’Byss, yes,” the girl nodded. “Think of the terror you’d instill. Being bested by a foe wielding a sword called Souldrinker … that you could live with. Imagine the shame of having the piss smacked out of you by a blade called Fluffy.”

“Well, that’s my point. Names speak to