Seeklight

“Punk,” snarled the captain’s voice. The face was invisible in the darkness but the breath was thick and fetid with sour alcohol. “Rotten little thane’s son—if it weren’t for your cute tricks, we’d still be dry and warm right now!”

The blow barely registered on Daenek’s senses—he was aware of the rough leather sliding across his skin and his head whipping to one side. There was a taste of warm salt on his lips.

A tremendous burst of lightning and Daenek saw, frozen in its blue-white glare, the captain’s fist in the arc of another swing.

Behind the captain was another figure, reaching for him with massive arms, glistening with the rain. But that can’t be, thought Daenek, his mind whirling in confusion. We must me kilometers away from the quarry—

Then the mute, hulking figure, that Daenek had grown up watching and being watched by, gripped the captain’s neck and tore him away from Daenek as the lightning faded. As Daenek fell to his knees in the mud, he could hear the captain’s shout choked off with a single sharp noise.

A second passed, and Daenek felt himself being lifted by one arm. Another flash of lightning revealed the mute watcher holding him, then reaching for the cords at his wrist. Grunting, the mute strained, then snapped the strands in two. Suddenly, Daenek felt something hard strike him in the side of the head.

With his feet still bound, he fell sideways onto the flooded ground. The rest of the subthane’s men bowled over the mute, sprawling him and themselves into the muck.

The slippery rope seemed to take hours to loosen, but the mute and the subthane’s men were still grappling in the mud when Daenek was at last able to stand up. He hesitated, trying to see what was happening with the roiling mass of bodies, when another lightning flash burst through the shafts of rain.

One of the subthane’s men saw him and pulled away from the fight with the mute. From on his knees, the man dived for Daenek’s legs. Daenek staggered backwards and drove his fist into the side of the man’s head. The blow broke his grip, flinging him to one side, but not before Daenek felt a burning sensation course up his thigh, and saw a knife spin through the mud with its blade darkened.

Daenek turned and stumbled away, feeling the pain in his leg flare with every step. Then rain lashed against his face and chest until he gasped. He ran on, his feet skidding on the muddy slope.

Suddenly, he heard an animal-like cry, from a massive throat that had held no voice for years, filtering through the storm-filled distance. The shout died, broken off at the pitch of its rage. The ground sucked at his feet as Daenek ran.

“Thane’s son,” whispered the storm’s voice.

So this was where it would end. How far had he managed to drag himself before the rest of the sub-thane’s men had tracked him down? Kilometers perhaps, it didn’t matter. The whole universe had become mud and rain and tearing wind. The night was made even darker by fevered exhaustion and loss of blood.

Daenek pressed his face into the mud, away from the sneering voices.

“Thane’s son.” It was every voice now, that he had ever heard.

The villagers, the Lady Marche, Stepke, the priests. All the languages, with the inflections of fear and hatred drowning out the few strains of pride and hope. Some dull animal part of Daenek, almost the only part still conscious, longed for silence, for rest. Let death come, breathed the small seed made of darkness.

The rain beat on the hillside. Lightning and the shouts of his pursuers, very close. Noises from above him.

Chapter VIII

Sunlight. A yellow disc of it lay warm and liquid on Daenek’s face. He shifted his head away from the light and opened his eyes. The light came from a small round window set in a rivet-studded metal that was painted a dull grey.

Daenek’s brow creased as he looked about in puzzlement. He was lying in a narrow bed with sheets slightly fuzzy with years of wear, and a thin, drab brown blanket over them. There were other beds on either side of him, empty and spaced in neat rows.

The room was unlit except for the small circle of light.

Sunlight, thought Daenek, concentrating furiously. But it was raining, and the subthane’s men—

He sat up in the bed, the motion dizzying him for a second.

His muscles felt stiff but, as he pressed the palm of his hand to his face, he knew the fever was gone. A dull twinge of pain had replaced the throbbing fury of the wound in his thigh. “Hey,” he called into the dimly-lit space. “Is there anybody here?” His voice cracked, stiff with disuse.