fists clenched and trembling at my sides. I felt the rage building in my head so intensely that my ears buzzed with it, the air chopped with pressure, and I felt somewhat dizzy.
The captain smirked at me, utterly confident that he could casually kill us all and get away with it. “How? I don’t think so.”
A burrow wasp flying at top speed smacked audibly into his right check and stung him. He winced and cursed, slapping at it. Another followed, and a few more annoyed the other soldiers, and the buzzing sound in the night grew louder. The horrifying source of it flowed out of the black, a dark seething mass of wasps and other insects, glinting in places from firelight on wings or reflective carapaces, and they engulfed the soldiers like gloves made of tar. Screams ripped out of their mouths, and then they were choked off—perhaps with a flood of insects flying and crawling down their throats and up their noses. They dropped their crossbows in an effort to bat away the bugs, and the horses bucked and ran even though they were not specifically targeted. Every one of the riders fell off his horse, and the cloud of insects followed them to the ground, and seconds later the men stopped their thrashing and lay still. The horses were never bitten, only scared, and the same held true for everyone else. The Seekers scattered into the darkness with the horses, afraid that the swarms would come after them next. But I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself and said, “Enough, be at peace,” and the insects lifted away from the bodies of the soldiers and dispersed into the night. I called the soldiers’ horses to come back and gather near my horse and cart and then stepped forward to examine the body of the captain, a bit tired and unsteady on my feet.
The captain’s face was a swollen mass of stings, a misshapen lump of inflamed tissue. His mouth was open and filled with dead bugs, and spindly sawtoothed legs stuck out of his nostrils. “I guess that’s how I’ll kill you,” I said, surprised more than anything else. I hadn’t consciously summoned the swarms to do my bidding; in the aftermath of Madhep’s murder I just wanted the viceroy’s men dead, and it happened. But I supposed that made me a murderer, too. And Madhep was still gone.
Somebody made retching noises in the darkness, and I looked around. A few of the Seekers were coming back into the firelight now that the swarms had departed and discovering the ruin the insects had left behind. Their eyes swept over the bodies of the soldiers and then flicked to my face, wide and fearful, clearly wondering if they would suffer a similar fate.
“It’s safe,” I announced. “Nothing will hurt you.”
“Abhi? You look a bit taller,” Tamhan said. “And older.”
I looked down at my hands as if they would reflect my accurate age. They looked no different. “I do?”
“He’s right,” a girl said. “You’ve aged a little. You’re bigger.”
That explained my dizziness and weariness. And it settled the question of what the Sixth Kenning could do. My earlier reflections on the potential strength of the insect world came back to me.
“You’ve all seen the power of the Sixth Kenning now,” I said. “I am the world’s first plaguebringer.”
—
The assembled refugees on Survivor Field stood and roared their approval, giving the Raelech bard his second standing ovation. I noted that both times this had followed some adventure of Abhinava’s. I hoped that this obvious delight in a Nentian hero would quell the unrest among the expatriates living in Pelemyn.
Fintan’s tale of Abhi coming into his full powers along with the portrayal of one of their viceroys as a ruthless murderer certainly entertained the refugees and the citizens of Pelemyn, but it sent the local Nentians into a fit, dashing my hopes that our obvious high regard for Abhi would soothe their wounded egos. A longshoreman sent by the pelenaut’s Lung picked me up at home and recounted the night’s tumult as he escorted me to meet Fintan.
“We had to move him twice in the night, and him complaining the entire time about ruining what little sleep he can get. The Nentians are paying for information on his whereabouts and sending in hired fish heads to gut him. I see you have your sword. Good.”
“What? We’re going to be in danger?”
“Almost certainly. You’ll be delighted to hear we have