17

The dart from the ballista might have passed through Hunger like stick through a pile of sand, but the Mother had created him with more than dirt. He had a skeleton of wood and stone. Of course, it was not just wood. Not simple stone. Whatever power the Mother controlled had bound him. He wasn’t just a piece of carpentry, for then the ballista dart would have shattered his chest. But it didn’t. The dart stuck in his ribs and the force of the impact threw him backward.

But it did not throw him directly away from the wall and into the bailey. Instead, it cast him off the rampart and into the bottom wall of the hoardings used to sweep attackers off the slopes and cliffs on the back side of the fortress. And that saved the Sleth woman, for Hunger was able to grasp one of the hoarding timbers and swing up underneath.

Hundreds of feet below him the sea sparkled in the moonlight. The waves surged and crashed upon the rocks, spraying forth great gouts of pale foam. Hunger would have survived the long drop to the sea, but the Sleth woman would have broken on impact.

He heard the men yelling, and he felt… pain? It was not sharp, but there was an echo of hurt. And then he realized it was not him, but the Sleth woman. He could feel the emotions roiling inside her body, feel them like one might feel a puppy thrashing in a sack. He realized he’d always been able to feel the souls of his victims. He wanted to devour her, but he ignored his appetite.

He didn’t have much time, and he didn’t dare climb down the cliff, for the men would see him, and then she would die. So Hunger skittered like a spider along the belly of the hoardings until he was on the other side of the fortress, far away from the shouting.

He lay the Sleth woman onto the rock and sparse grass that grew here. He had probed the collar down in the cellar of the tower, but could not find its clasp. It was said only a Divine could remove a king’s collar, only they knew the lore of unbinding. But did he not have magic also? He examined the collar again. There was no break, the collar seemed to have been woven around the woman’s neck. But nothing was that perfect. He could find the part if he searched slowly.

It seemed he had only just begun when the Mother stirred again. Hunger bent his concentration, moving faster and faster along the loops and whirls. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

She was coming, he could feel it. Feel her fingers reaching out to his mind.

Panic rose in him. She couldn’t have it. She mustn’t have it. Then he found a spot that seemed different from the rest, but he couldn’t tell for sure if it was the spot of joining. It wasn’t a break; it was just a spot.

Hunger?

He tried to unravel the collar at that point, but he could not. It resisted him. Then he mustered all his strength, he pulled, and, when he thought he’d failed, the collar snapped.

Fire and stink billowed up around him and into the sky.

What is that? the Mother asked.

He could not resist her question. Fire, he said. Fire, from the pretty collar about the Sleth woman’s neck.

She pushed into his mind, and he feared she would discover his secret, but she didn’t care about the collar, only the Sleth woman.

This is the one? asked the Mother.

Yes.

She’s weak.

The men beat her. They do not like ones that stink.

Fool, she said. They worship them.

Not this one, said Hunger.

The Mother directed her attention at the collar, and Hunger held very still.

A king’s collar, she said.

Yes, said Hunger. I broke it.

You did indeed, she said. And then she laughed.

Hunger ran though the woods like a dark wind, carrying the Sleth woman to the Mother. He held her like he had held his bonny girl when she was only a pint. He ran through the dark, piney forest, keeping the branches from the Sleth woman, and the memories of his littlest, Rose, for that was her name-the memories of her dark eyes came to him. Dark, little, shining eyes, and him dancing with her held to his chest, her squealing like a piglet for joy. Around and around he had gone with her, dancing his jig on the banks of the stream in a piney forest, his fine wife singing her ballad for the fifth time, the boys clapping the beat, impatiently waiting their turn to whirl in the arms of their da. Around and around until his head spun and he fell into the grass. And little Rose climbing up on his chest to look down at him with those dark, sparkling eyes, the blue sky at her back.

A man of dirt does not weep. He cannot sob. Hunger knew this all too well. But in his deepest parts he felt a longing, an emptiness, a something so vast and lonely and bleak that he stumbled with the Sleth woman and fell to one knee.

The Green Beggar had taught him that if a soul escaped the creatures that waited to devour them; if it managed the long trail in the world of the dead with all its perils; if it were wise, it would find that great Brightness that awaited even the most plain and rude of creatures. The everlasting burnings of joy prepared by the Creators for those who sought the wisdom of the heart.

He, obviously, had not had much wisdom, for the Mother had caught him and devoured great portions of his soul almost as he was born into the other world. And he, in turn, had devoured others. Surely, the Six would destroy him should he ever win his freedom. But Rose, the boys, his good wife. They had done nothing.

The Mother called. She wanted this woman so strongly that her compulsion made him stand.

He held the broken collar in one hand and looked at it.

The Mother had laughed at him. At that moment he’d seen that it was indeed broken. Dead. His hope was nothing more than a scrap of metal, its stink carried away by the wind. But he had the woman. And the Mother had promised to release his family.

No, she hadn’t said that exactly, had she? She’d never promised to release them.

The Mother called again, and he could not resist her. He ran across a meadow and down to the rocks where one of the mouths of the Mother’s caves lay.

This kidney-shaped entrance to the warrens sat hidden in the folds of the ravines and cliffs along the sea. He climbed up to it and eased himself in. It was almost too small for him by himself, so he held the woman close to his chest and belly with one arm and scrabbled along.

Again, he met the Mother in the warm room, the one that smelled of what he now knew was sulfur.

“Here,” said Hunger. “This is the one that will lead us to the others.”

“Yes,” said the Mother. And she took her from him and laid her on a soft bed of grass and furs. “We will need to keep her for a number of days. That will be your task.”

“She’ll die down here,” he said. “They need light.”

“Then you fetch it. If you want those pitiful souls, you keep her alive.”

“Yes,” he said. She would need food. She would need someone else to be with her. But someone who would not run away.

He did not want to ask her the question, but he had to. He had to know. “Will you release one of the souls to me now?”

“Perhaps,” she said.

“You said-”

“Quiet!” she commanded.

She wouldn’t do it. She was a liar. But a thought had been forming. All was not lost. No, he had an idea buried deep down. If the collar could be made, then it could be remade. He didn’t know how. But those men… he turned to leave.

The Mother stopped him. “I want the others as well,” she said.

She’d heard his thoughts, knew who she spoke of. And his inability to hide from her filled him with dismay. “What others?” he asked.