Knife Children (The Sharing Knife series) Read online

  Nope. Double crap. Some five or six barrel-wide bumps lay in the earth around the lair like the tops of oversized, misshapen combs in a wasp nest, nursery for larvae. The pots’ swollen surfaces betrayed their quasi-living contents, passing animals captured and subjected to this malice’s budding groundwork, forms changing from the inside out.

  The Why the blight didn’t the Pearl Riffle patrol find this thing before now? question was answered by the malice’s newness. The patrol was lucky if it could cover every outlying sweep in its region once a year. Closer in, like here, might get checked every six months, but this malice couldn’t be older than three months.

  Three months from now it was going to be a lot easier to find, hah. It might even be on the march to find people itself, whatever unprotected farms lay with ten or twenty miles; or worse, stray Lakewalkers. Worse for everybody, including the Lakewalkers, because then the malice would be abruptly boosted to many times its present mage-skills.

  Or maybe three days from now—its gravid engorgement promised the next molt very soon.

  Well, let’s not feed it a stray Lakewalker today, eh? Barr began to back out.

  And into a soft body.

  He whipped his hunting knife out and whirled around so fast he nearly sliced Lily, who’d come up behind him unsensed by his closed ground and unheard, well, he’d no idea what was wrong with his ears, apart from the wildest distraction. “I told you to stay put!” He’d meant it for a fierce whisper, but it came out more of a strangled shriek.

  She recoiled, the hand that had touched his shoulder hiding behind her, but then her gaze and her groundsense swung to the malice huddled under the slate bank. Her eyes sprang wide and her face drained green. “What is that?”

  “That’s a sessile malice, and it can sense you.” The long lump was already reacting, bucking in helpless excitement. “You didn’t bring the horses up, did you?” A pregnant mare, gods, that thing would love a pregnant mare. After ground-ripping Briar, it would probably molt on the spot.

  It would relish Lily much more, however.

  “Tied Moon to a tree by the path. He was trying to follow me. I don’t know if Briar stayed with him.” Her face bunched in distress. “You didn’t come back. I got scared!”

  Barr knew a raft of rivermen’s invective, inventive and blistering, and it all eluded him in his present need. “Crap. Crap. Crap.” He drew breath. “Now we run. Back to the path.”

  But Lily was looking past him. “What is that, now?”

  Barr spun on his heel in time to see a not-quite-finished mud-man erupt out of its pot in the damp soil like a boil bursting. Raccoon core, probably, although it was grown to man-sized. It lurched toward them, black slime spinning off patchy wet fur and blood-red skin.

  “Retreat.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her with him, moving backward over the rise. With every stride, the raccoon-man was finding its balance, picking up its pace. The distorted creature was moving too blighted fast. Barr couldn’t make out, in the blur, if its black claws tipping too-human hands had hardened to killing sharpness, or were still soft. But it looked like he was going to find out real soon. “Run and don’t stop, back to the horses!”

  That would put Lily temporarily out of range, if this malice was advanced enough to try for mind-slaving instead of just consumption. It didn’t seem as if more than the one mud-man had been ripe enough to be deployed. Barr put himself between it and Lily, raising his knife. He slashed it good, incoming, but it barreled right into him anyway. They both went tail over teakettle, rolling down the slope toward the trickle of creek, bouncing painfully off saplings and slamming over tree roots that hit like cudgels.

  A muddy knee-like joint landed on his knife-arm, and two big hands closed around his neck. Gods the thing stank at this range. Though if it had its way, in a moment he wouldn’t be breathing, solving that problem naturally. He squeezed his own knee up between them, heaving the thing off him and breaking its hold at the price of half-mangling his neck. He scrambled to his feet.

  It came up after him swinging—maybe it had been a wolverine—and Barr dodged harrowing claws, trying for a slash any-which-way under its guard. His boot slipped in the damp leaf litter on the slope, twisting his bad leg, and he howled obscenities that he shouldn’t ought to be saying in front of Lily, where was Lily—

  A loud, wet plonk echoed, like somebody’d thrown down a muskmelon from a second-story window onto a cobbled street. The mud-man staggered forward from the bash on the back of its head delivered by a log like half a fence rail, swung with all her might by Lily. She swung again and again, blond braid bouncing, screeching like a farmwife frightened by a mouse: “Eeek! Eew! Ugh! Eew, eew!”

  Absent gods, any mouse crossed her kitchen floor was going to be paste.

  The mud-man, which in addition to not living quite right, didn’t die quite right, kept heaving around at her feet as she bashed away, so she didn’t stop either. “Die, you ugly thing!”

  Leg throbbing, Barr found his balance, such as it was, and watched open-mouthed. Knife work, bow work, ground work… yeah, her method worked, too.

  Oh, my aching head, she’s so cute! So cuuute…! It wasn’t till the bludgeoned beast stopped heaving and took to feeble twitching that he was able to break out of his arrested enchantment.

  Also because Lily dropped her log, backed up, clutched her belly, bent over, and started violently hurling up her breakfast.

  Aye, her first blight burn. Let’s get the crap away from here. Ow, Ow… He limped down to her, grabbed her arm, and said, “You can keep barfing, but start walking. This way.”

  “You’re bleeding!” she cried between halts for heaves. He wasn’t sure if her tears were for the terror or the nausea, both justified, but in either case he did the polite thing and passed no comment on them. “I thought you were killed!”

  “Not dead while I can still swear.” Barr dabbed at his neck. His fingers came away wet and red. “Ayup. Scratches aren’t deep, though.” Or they’d have taken out an artery. Let’s not think about that. “We’ll need to clean them soon as we get back to the horses and before we ride, though, because those claws were filthy.”

  “Ride where?” she gulped.

  “Yeah, I’d better decide quick, shouldn’t I.” The three closest camps to their present location were Log Hollow, Muskrat Slough, and Pearl Riffle, and Pearl Riffle was less than half the distance of the other two. They could ride to it in one long, brutal day. It wasn’t even a choice.

  Unless they threw lucky and ran across a patrol on the way, Barr supposed. Yeah, best not count those unhatched chickens.

  We’re both alive. You can’t ask for more luck in one day than that.

  “And the next lesson,” he wheezed as they splashed down the creek bed, “is that when your patrol leader tells you to stay put, you blighted stay put.”

  She didn’t seem nearly impressed enough by his muted fury, maybe because he was having trouble with the fury part. Cute was remarkably disarming, as was being wracked with relief.

  “I was afraid—if you’d had one of those primed knives, you’d have stuck it right into that horrible thing, right?”

  “Oh, yes. And this emergency would be over. I wish.”

  “I was terrified you’d make me help you prime your knife, and then I’d have to stick it in the malice myself.” He wasn’t sure which half of that appalled her more. With his ground closed, he had to judge her mood by her face. She looked pretty distraught. Her stomach spasms were passing off, though; she bent and scooped up a handful of water from the creek, rinsed her mouth, and spat. And stood resolutely up and wobbled on, though she watched him sideways.

  “I… won’t say such an act has never played out before in patrol history, but it wouldn’t have worked today in any case. If you’d got any closer to that malice, unshielded as you are, it would’ve ripped your ground right out of you, and you’d’ve been dead before you could strike.” Barr shuddered, disguised in his general stumbling. “No, we just fol
low standard procedures for a case like this. Later, we need to talk about the following orders parts of those. But first we ride like madmen for the nearest camp and report the malice sighting. And they send out a patrol to take care of it properly equipped.”

  “Oh…” Her blond brows crimped. “Will I get to see a real Lakewalker camp, then?”

  “Yeah,” Barr sighed, concealing his anticipatory cringe. “Pearl Riffle’s closest.”

  “Wait, isn’t that your home?”

  “Ayup. The blight burn in your ground is going to make you sick for a few days, but sick or no, you’re going to have to keep up with me. Moon will follow Briar”—he would make sure of it—“so you just need to stick in your saddle. When we get there, Maker Verel will be able to help the worst of it, so keep thinking on that.”

  What else would await her when they arrived, Barr couldn’t even begin to guess.

  Blight. Blight. Blight…

  * * *

  They dropped down from the patrol trails into the great valley of the Grace River as full darkness overtook them. Barr thought he could navigate at this stage with his ground closed and a sack over his head just by the familiar smells. The sweep of the stars above and their answering glint on the wide, moving waters lifted his heart despite all his distractions. He’d missed this place more than he’d known, seemed like.

  The last five miles or so on the well-maintained farmer road were the easiest going they’d had all day, thankfully, because Lily’d folded into a silent bundle of misery clinging to her saddle, too sick to complain. It was unfortunate that the most efficient pace for the grueling trek was a trot that was hard on a nauseated rider, though they’d been forced to a walk over the more rugged stretches. Briar was holding up, but Moon was flagging. Barr’d saved what time he could by limiting breaks to watering stops. Food was out of the question for Lily, but after all that barfing he needed to keep her from becoming dangerously parched.

  When they angled off the river road up toward the northeast gate of his home camp, Barr’s throat tightened, ambushed by stupid tears. Tired, that’s all it is. And those stupid clawings, that kept opening up and leaking under the makeshift bandage wrapped around his neck. And the stupid bruises, that sapped strength even when their pain was ignorable. He gulped down all his stupid and led on.

  The entry was guarded as usual by a couple of patrollers on camp rest, sitting on stumps under the light of a bright rock-oil lantern up on a pole. They were occupying their hands and time by spinning twine, but they set down their task and rose as the two horses emerged out of the darkness.

  “Who goes—oh! Young Barr Foxbrush, as I live and breathe! So you didn’t freeze up in Luthlia after all!”

  Emie Heron; he’d patrolled with her any number of times. With the fellow, too, though he didn’t recall his name right off.

  “More like to be sucked to death by the ticks, but yeah, I’m back. Can’t stop. We came across a sessile malice way up in Sector Six, and I’d no primed knife with me. I need to report it to Captain Amma.”

  “Right. Go.” She gave way instantly, although her brows rose as he passed into the circle of light. “Looks like it came across you, too!”

  “Medicine tent’ll be the next stop. Verel home?”

  “Should be.” He barely caught her trailing mutter as the two riders passed by, “Now who’s that he’s got with him…?”

  Comfortable lights speckled the hillside, families settling down into their tents—which farmers insisted were actually cabins—for the night. Barr picked out and then studiously ignored the kin cluster that was Tent Foxbrush, barely visible through trees full with new leaf. A whiff from the tannery, down by the waterside, wrinkled his nostrils. A warmer whiff of horses from the patrol paddocks chased it as they skirted around, and both their mounts snuffled and twitched curious ears.

  At length, Barr turned in and pulled up before the foursquare clapboard building that was the patrol headquarters. A yellow glow from oil lamps shone through the glass windows—good, folks were still about. He opened his ground enough to announce himself to those within, and the reverse—ah, there was Amma in person; they wouldn’t have to hunt up the camp patrol captain from her dinner.

  “Are we there yet?” moaned Lily into Moon’s mane as she was at last allowed to halt. The gelding’s head drooped.

  “Ayup. You just stick tight up there for a little longer. I shouldn’t be more’n five minutes inside, and then we can get you to the medicine tent.”

  “You’ve been saying that fer hours. Lyin’… liar.”

  That was unfortunately so. With a guilty pang, Barr left her to her wilt and hobbled within.

  Amma Osprey was already rising to her feet from her lamplit writing table as he closed the door behind him. “Barr! You made it back! Your tent kin have been looking out for you for the past month.”

  A rare smile lightened her angular features—very rare, to have directed at him. He sopped it up while he could get it. She was still tall, lean, wearing everyday patrol garb of boots, trousers, shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and long leather vest. Her hair was barely grayer, although he flinched a bit to see it bound again in a tight mourning knot at her nape. Tent Osprey was far-flung; it need not be for someone too intimate, though he wondered if there was a new primed knife in the camp arsenal. If she didn’t volunteer the details, he wouldn’t make remark, at least not now.

  As she took in his bedraggled state her mouth screwed up, consuming the smile. “Right, boy, what tried to take your head off? This time.”

  “Mud-man. Lots to tell”—and not tell—“but first thing, we ran across a sessile at the top of Sector Six. I didn’t have a primed knife on me, so we scarpered straight for camp.”

  “Why didn’t you have a knife? Didn’t those stingy Luthlians send you home with one?”

  “They did, but I used it on a sessile I ran across in north Raintree. Sent the pieces and the thank-you letter back by the courier from Hickory Lake.”

  “Ah. Good on you, then. And on them.” She charitably didn’t ask if the knife’s death had been someone he knew.

  Turning to open the map cabinet, she pulled out the relevant chart, which she flung across the big table in the center of the room like a sheet settling over a bed. Bony hands spread, smoothing it out. “That area was last combed-through just four months back. Training patrol. Did they miss a section?”

  “Maybe not. I didn’t judge this sessile had been growing for much more’n three months, though it looked to be right on the verge of its first molt. It did have its first batch of mud-men brewing.” He laid his thumb down on the spot he gauged nearest the sighting, and Amma nodded.

  “When?”

  “Around noon today.”

  “You made good time.” She frowned at the map. “But what were you doing way up there?”

  “Shortcut to Clearcreek.”

  “What, off to see that Dag fellow before you even checked in with your own kin? Or me?” She gave him a side-eye. He shrugged, which seemed safer than saying anything.

  She strode for the door to the back room and shouted through it, “Ryla! Drop what you’re doing and go tell Fin to get his reserve patrol ready to ride out at dawn. Supplies for four days.” She glanced over her shoulder at Barr. “Or more?”

  “Not much more. It only had six mud-men ready to pop, and we took out one of them.”

  “Make that five days,” she amended her direction. “And stop on the way at the medicine tent, tell Verel he’s got an old customer coming.”

  “Two customers,” Barr put in.

  She turned her head toward the front of the building beyond which Lily wearily waited. “Ah, I see…” She leaned back into the doorway and corrected, “Couple of ‘em. A youngling with her tail dragging, and Barr Foxbrush back from Luthlia with his usual shenanigans.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” came the return call, followed by the sound of quick bootsteps and the rear door slamming.

  Amma turned back to Barr. He coul
d just about watch the calculations of people, equipment, horses, time and distance rolling over in her captainly head. But she said, “Who’s your partner? You bring an exchange patroller back from Luthlia?” A puzzled frown as her groundsense flicked out again. “No… too young to be an exchange patroller. Too young to be any patroller!”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you could have seen her take down her first mud-man today,” said Barr, torn between pride and wariness.

  “How’d you come to be trailing a youngster? You pick her up from another camp? Courierin’ her somewhere?”

  “Long story,” he evaded this. “Tell you tomorrow.” Unless I can duck you. “Right now I need to get her over to the medicine tent. Because she also took her first blight burn, and then I made her ride after me all day. She’s sick as a pup.”

  “No argument here. Your day’s done, get along with you.” Her brow furrowed as she studied him, gaze lingering on the soaked bandage. “That one looks like a little too close a shave. I thought you were over turning up looking like something the catamount dragged in, or I wouldn’t have sent you off to plague poor Luthlia.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sweet on you too, Amma.” He made a gesture in the general vicinity of a salute, and retreated while he still had his hide intact. Apart from his neck.

  “Good job, Barr!” she called after him. “And your young friend! Welcome home!”

  Uncommon praise from Pearl Riffle’s stern camp captain. He smiled bleakly and slipped out the door like a fish, closing it behind him before she could glimpse Lily.

  The climb back up onto Briar seeming insurmountable, he took the reins of both horses and limped off into the cozy darkness. “Not far to go.”

  “Doan b’lieve you.”

  “Now, now.” This close to help, Barr was finally able to be amused.