The bailiff positioned himself above to get a clearer view of the cellar.

Sugar switched the lamp to her other hand, moving it so that it cast a shadow over Legs.

“Lift it higher,” said the bailiff, “I can’t see.”

“Yes, Zu.” Her mind raced. What could she do? What lie could she tell him?

None came to her mind.

She shifted the lamp.

“Ho,” boomed Zu Hogan from the doorway. “What is this?”

The bailiff turned, and Sugar saw her chance. She quickly descended the remaining steps and hurried to stand in front of Leg’s foot. She held her lamp out as if she were trying to give the room its best possible illumination.

“What kind of a lunatic challenges Fir-Noy armsmen?” asked the bailiff.

Zu Hogan put his hands on his hips. “The same kind that challenges Bone-Faced rot.”

“That’s all good and fine,” said the bailiff. “But you’ve put me in a position. Do you know how lucky you are? Any other Koramite and you’d lose your head. I would have to take it myself.”

“We have far greater things than Fir-Noy honor to worry about,” said Zu Hogan. “The woman held in Whitecliff, she’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Stolen out of the tower by a creature that cast Droz and his whole guard about like puppets.”

The bailiff stood stunned. “Goh,” he finally said. “Her creation, then, come to free her? Or that of her hatchlings?”

“We don’t know where it came from or whence it bore her. The dogs can’t track it.”

Sugar sat down. There was no doubt about Mother now. She wondered what kind of creature it was that had rescued her. But she couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t picture her mother as Sleth any more than she could picture her as a dog.

What would Zu Hogan do? He wouldn’t turn her in, would he? Not after hiding and lying for them.

“She’s probably all safely tucked away now in some wicked bolt hole.” The bailiff cursed. There was a brief pause in their conversation then the bailiff said, “This does not bode well for your people.”

“It does not bode well for any of us,” said Zu Hogan. “Because when you do find them, even if you take one hundred men, it won’t be enough. The creature was shot through with arrows and stabbed with spears. Captain Argoth delivered a blow that would have beheaded a horse. Nothing. The ballista men shot a dart and smote the beast squarely in the chest, and it still managed somehow to vanish. It cannot be harmed by normal means.”

The bailiff looked down at Sugar.

“What’s more,” said Hogan, “if it’s taken her, then I suspect it most certainly has the two hatchlings that escaped.”

The bailiff nodded. “We’re done here.”

He called his men off, and as suddenly as they’d come, they left.

Sugar whispered to Legs to stay put then she walked back up the stairs.

Hogan, Talen, and Nettle stood out in the yard. She joined them to watch the bailiff and his men walk back to the woods where they’d tied their horses.

“Do you think he suspects?” asked Nettle.

“No,” said Zu Hogan. “Although I do wonder how he missed marking Sugar.”

“We created a ruse,” said Talen.

“Oh?”

“We were…”

“Yes?”

“Sporting,” finished Sugar.

Nettle raised an eyebrow, but Zu Hogan looked down at her with a sad smile. “Purity’s daughter indeed,” he said.

What that meant, she could not tell. But she could guess what he was thinking. Her mother was a monster. So what did you do with the child of a monster? Sugar knew the answer to that question.

She also knew her mother. There would be an explanation if she could talk to her. There had to be.

About a quarter mile down the road from Hogan’s place, the bailiff halted the men. Prunes reined in his horse with the rest of them.

“I’ve been commanded to post a watch on Hogan,” said the bailiff. “So two of you are going to stay behind. Prunes, you and Gid will have the first day. I’ll send someone to relieve you in the morning.”

That was just Prunes’s luck. He gets an opportunity to sleep, but he has to do it with that garlic-eater at his side. Still, some rest was better than none at all. Prunes simply nodded then peeled his horse from the column, Gid following behind.

They hobbled their horses in a small glen on the far side of the hill and began hiking to find the right position to watch the Koramite.

A few steps up the slope and Gid began to sing under his breath. “A lady green with lips so wide, I could not help but kiss her. But when I’d had my fill of tongue, I put her in the roaster.”

“Will you shut up,” said Prunes.

“They’re not going to hear us.”

“I don’t care if they do hear us. We’re not going to find anything here.”

“How do you mean?”

“This is Captain Argoth’s brother-in-law. We’re not going to find anything here but some rest. And that’s what I intend to take. And that is also why you’re going to be quiet as a mouse.”

“You don’t know what loyalties flow in that Koramite’s veins,” said Gid. “In fact, for a Koramite on the run, this might be the very best place to hide.”

“See,” said Prunes, “that’s what comes of eating too much garlic. You get brain vapors.”

“It’s got nothing to do with what I eat.”

“Stinking vapors of the mind,” said Prunes.

Gid made a rude gesture, but Prunes ignored it.

Soon they found an outcropping of rock that gave a clear view of the farm, then positioned themselves just behind the brush line.

As soon as they sat down, Gid took out a whetstone and began sharpening his knife.

Stupid eager-that’s what he was. If Sleth did indeed pay the Koramite a visit, then they’d need more than knives. Goh, the Koramite’s reports of that creature in Whitecliff gave Prunes the shivers. And if that thing showed up, the best thing to do would be to run. Run or hide in some hole. Then Prunes realized he’d sat in the wrong place. “You need to sit over here,” said Prunes.

“Why?”

“Because that places me upwind of your stinking carcass.”

But Gid gave him a look that said he wasn’t moving. After a few moments, Prunes sighed in irritation. The man was an affliction, but it wasn’t worth a battle. He picked himself up and found a better spot. “You’ve got first watch,” said Prunes. “If I catch you sleeping, you’re going to dance to a hard pipe.”

Gid grunted. “And who do you think will be my partner?”

But Prunes had already laid back and closed his eyes and wasn’t even going to consider giving Gid an answer.

19

Talen stood in the house, facing his father who had just related the events at the Whitecliff fortress the night before. Da’s face was bruised from when the creature had knocked him aside. His throat was worse. It looked like he wore a blue-and-purple collar. The creature had throttled him and damaged his voice. When he finished his tale, none of the others spoke.

Talen didn’t care that the boy and the girl were standing right here with them. “The evidence, it appears, is overwhelming,” he said. “The Fir-Noy were not making this rot up.”

Earlier, he hadn’t known what to do. He and Nettle had not been able to sleep. They had discussed the situation from the moment the girl and boy had gone down into the cellar last night until the sun rose. They could give the girl and boy the benefit of the doubt, as it seemed Da, River, and Ke were willing to do, and assume huge risks. They could distract the two until Nettle could call the authorities to come collect them. Or they could kill them. But the questioners would want them alive. The laws of the hunt would demand punishment. Furthermore, if they were Sleth and there was a nest of them, then anyone who killed the boy and girl could expect the same retribution that was visited upon the village of Plum.