Waker followed next, and two other men brought up the rear. Both men were armed with evil-looking four-bladed spears.The smaller man wore a cloak that had been embellished with iridescent disks that flashed like fishskin. Effie could not tell if any of them were clan.

"What 'ave we here, my little piggy?" the man with the broken nose said, spying the boat "Livestock, by the looks of it. Good and healthy."

Waker came forward. He was unrestrained and Effie saw that his knives were riding high in their sheaths. Tar oozed over their hilts. The strangers must have poured it on the blades to disable them. "They're mine, Eggtooth. I've paid the toll on them."

The pig trotted over the sandstone to investigate the boat. The man named Eggtooth followed. "That was before I had me a proper look at 'em." His eyes were pale, almost colorless, and they were now focused on Effie. He licked his lips. The pig began to squeal. Reaching the boat, it pushed its wet, pine-needle-encrusted snout against Chedd's arm. Chedd jerked away and the boat rolled. Waker's father made a quick adjustment. Steadying.

Eggtooth glanced at him. "Good day to you" Effie leant forward, thinking, Here it is: Waker's father's name, "old man."

Waker's father made no reply. The pig would not go near him, Effie observed.

"And what 'ave we here?" Eggtooth jabbed her chin with the butt of his spear, forcing her to raise her head. "A little scar I see. The stitcher did good work."

Effie resisted the urge to touch her cheek. She had forgotten the scar existed. No one had mentioned it to her since the day Laida Moon had winkled out the stitches. Cutty Moss's knife had cut deep, but Laida had told her she was lucky because the luntman had picked the one spot on her cheek where there was no muscle underlying the skin. When Laida had held up the glass and shown Effie her handiwork, Effie remembered thinking Is that all? She had expected something…grander.

Unsure what to do she looked at Eggtooth evenly. His nose was covered in broken veins and there was some kind of insect bite on the left nostril.

"Cool as milk," he commented, throwing the remark backward to his men. "Pretty hair. A man could make good coin just in the scalp- ing."

Effie frowned. Why was he trying to goad her? The pig, finished with examining Chedd, turned its flat pink face toward her. She wasn't about to have any of it and clapped her hands right in front of its snout. With a loud grunt, the pig closed its tiny black eyes and launched itself at her throat. Eggtooth snapped on the leash, lassoing the pig in midair. Ungodly squealing followed. Chedd plugged his fingers in his ears.

Under cover of the noise, Waker's father leaned forward a fraction in the boat and whispered in Effie's ear, "To get rid of scum, best play dumb."

Eggtooth twisted the leash so that the metal bit dug into the comers' of the pig's mouth. The creature's eye bulged and it began to wheeze pathetically. After a few seconds, Eggtooth released the slack.

"On your way to the Cursed Clan, eh?" he said, still addressing Effie. "Know what they do to young uns there?"

Effie nearly, but did not, say No.

"Feed 'em to the bog," Eggtooth said with a nasty laugh.

A strangled, airless sound came from Chedd's throat.

"Tie stones to their chests and sink 'em," Eggtooth said, switching fire from Effie to Chedd. "Pull 'em up a week later and eat what the fish didn't want."

Chedd fainted. One moment he was sitting upright, if a little forward on his seat, and the next he keeled right over, felling straight into the prow of the boat. Something cracked. The boat rocked wildly. Effie dug her heels into the deck to stop herself from sliding forward.

Eggtooth and his men roared with laughter. The one with the fish-scale cloak slapped his side. The pig sneered at Effie. Walter's father stretched his arm to work out a cramp. On the sandstone ledge fifteen feet away, Waker watched his father's arm. Effie felt her mouth begin to tingle.

"I told you these two were no good," Waker said, speaking over the laughter. "A fattie and a mute. You've had a gold piece for them— they're not worth any more."

Eggtooth tapped his forked spear against the rock. He seemed to be thinking. The pig had found a lump of duck crap and was licking it.

"She's no mute," Eggtooth declared finally, staring straight at Erne.

A long pause followed, and then Waker Stone said quietly, "Go ahead, look for yourself."

All the while Eggtooth had been tapping his spear, the strange tingly numbness had been growing in Effie's mouth. It felt like she was being pricked with dozens of needles, only there was no pain, just weird pricking. By the time that Chedd had pulled himself up from the prow and lumped himself down on the seat, the numbness had turned into thickness and now she no longer recognized the landscape of tumorous ridges that had become the insmes of her mouth.

Suspecting a trap, Eggtooth made a signal to his men. Lowering the points of their spears, they sheared fur from Waker's otter-skin coat. Eggtooth took a step forward and carefully brought the twin points of his spear to the roof of EfFie's jaw. "Open up," he told her.

Effie opened her mouth. Something darker and thicker than air smoked out.

Eggtooth leant toward her. Peered inside. Frowned. Everyone was quiet, even the pig. Eggtooth's own mouth fell open. "Sweet gods. She doesn't even have teeth, let alone a tongue." Shuddering with feeling, he withdrew the spear.

Erne closed her mouth. The thickness was wearing thin. Behind her, Waker's father's seat creaked.

"Get going, the lot of you!" ordered Eggtoothmth a mighty stamp of his spear. Sodding freaks."

Waker wasted no time in jumping into the boat and pushing off. Not bothering to recoil mooring rope, he left it trailing behind in the water. Instinctively Effie knew that she had to steegmore than paddle, and she plunged he oar deep into the starboard side, guiding the boat away from shore. Directly ahead of her, Chedd paddled with real force. Directly behind her, Waker Stone's father hung on grimly to the gunwales, exhausted.

Chedd and Waker quickly fell into a strong rhythm, and the three men and the pig were soon left behind on the northern shore. When the boat finally rounded the riverbend and they passed beyond sight, Chedd turned to Effie. A square welt on his forehead marked the place where he'd hit the deck.

"Pirates without boats," he said with satisfaction and relief.

Effie decided that now wasn't a good time to remind him what Eggtooth had said about Clan Gray.

Floating east on the Mouseweed, she tried very hard to feel saved.

THIRTY-ONE A Journey Begins

“Give me one more day," Thomas Argola, the outlander, had said. "Do not leave in the morning."

They had been standing in his cave, the only one with a hinged door in the entire city, and Raif kept his hand on the bolt to keep the door from closing. "No," he had replied. "I go tomorrow. Tell me what you've learned."

Raif thought about that conversation now as he and Addie Gunn headed due east along the rim of the Rift. They had been traveling for the better part of the day and the going was hard and rocky. Stony bluffs, mounds of boulders and steep and sudden drops had to be navigated with care. Ground snow was a problem, concealing cracks and loose stones, but at least it wasn't hard with ice. Weeds poked through the white. Mounds of black sedge concentrated the warmth of the sun, turning the surrounding snow into mush. The air was clear and smelled of stone, but Addie warned that come nightfall there'd be mist "Air's dry. Land's wet. Fog'll rise with the dark." There was not much the small, fair-haired cragsman did not know about the land, and Raif accepted his words without question. It did not mean they would stop though. When you've given a dead man your word you only stop to sleep.